The power of compounding.

I am cleaning up some of my accounts and doing a rollover from my TIAA accounts to an IRA. I have a couple of TIAA accounts left over from a couple of employers I worked for 30 years ago. These accounts were pretty much ignored and left to fester. But now they are worth almost

6 figures. This is without adding any money for 30 years and very little management. Had I continued to work for those employers and managed those funds more intellegently, I can easily have a portfolio of 7 figures. These were not jobs that paid a high salary. So anyone who continue to save money and manage money throughout their career can easily retire with a pretty hefty portfolio.
Reply to
PeterL
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Well (duh!)... Ain't that what we've all been trying to tell folks for years?

You now have a shining example of exactly what can happen when you let money sit and breed for a while.

Almost like magic, ain't it!

Too bad most folks can't/won't get it. No matter how many times you tell 'em. No matter how many examples you walk 'em through. They just don't get it. Even worse, they reject the whole concept of compounding -- making it far worse when they're *paying* interest instead of earning it.

I'm beginning to think that some folks just aren't wired for it. Sure ... mathematically they can understand compounding ... but they just don't have the self-dicipline to NotSpendIt(tm).

Kudos. You made a good move by sitting on the accounts and not spending it away. Congrats!

.
Reply to
Sgt.Sausage

"Sgt.Sausage" wrote

You belittle others for their ignorance. What I find ignorant is your not asking why these folks do not get it. Obviously (to you and me) it pays to understand financial planning. So why is this not obvious to everyone? When you try to answer this question thoughtfully, and apply what you learn from your effort to teaching others, then you will know something of real intelligence.

There is tough love and then there is whining and not contributing to a solution.

Reply to
Elle

Financial planning should be taught in the schools, high schools certainly, perhaps elementary schools. But then another breed of whiners would complain that the schools should stick to the 3Rs and not get into practical life issues.

Reply to
Don

I've tried ... Believe me I've tried. If you've got a suggestion, I'm open to it.

NOTE:

Parents: Bankruptcy, 1989. Sister: Bankruptcy, 1997 -- heading for another (if they'll let her with the new laws) Uncle (in-law): Bankruptcy, 1999 after burning through a 6.2 million dollar inheritance in under 5 years.

You can talk to these folks until you're blue in the face and it will get you nowhere.

It's not meant to "belittle" -- it's merely a statement of fact. Folks are in Denial about finances.

***

I have employees at my shop. I counsel every one of 'em at least once a year on participation in our retirement plan (NOTE: We offer a SIMPLE IRA.)

I put together individualized spreadsheets with their numbers, from their salary, and realistic rates of return/inflation numbers. I show them what their expected SS payouts will be, and how far below their current standard of living that will leave them.

I walk them through example after example and ... yes -- they understand the math. Yes -- they can reasonably afford to participate (we're a software development shop -- salaries are quite high when compared to median incomes. We're in the midwest, expenses are quite low when compared to the rest of the country. )

We have our finance guy -- the one who runs the IRA -- a professional investment advisor -- he comes in to meet with each and every new hire, individually, to discuss their plans and goals.

And yet ... I still have folks who won't participate. I'm trying to give them FreeMoney(tm) in the plan offered and they still won't take it. (Me) "Here! Take this money! I'm giving away FreeMoney(tm)" (Them) "uhhhh ... no thanks ..."

***

We have one guy who uses the SIMPLE IRA as a personal savings account. Let it build up for a year or two -- BAM! Withdraw it all and buy a $6,000 entertainment center/ home theater system. Let it build up another year or two -- BAM! withdraw $7K for a 3 week trip to Europe. Let it build up another year or two -- BAM! Withdraw it all to buy a new car (had to pay for the "upside down" portion of old car before buying new -- they wouldn't let him roll it into the new car loan.)

You get the picture.

If you've got suggestions, I'm wide open.

I ask myself every day -- a recurring family history (above) of bankruptcy and no financial discipline. Employees ... *educated* employees with Math, Science, and Engineering degrees. The only thing I can come up with is denial. Pathological denial.

.
Reply to
Sgt.Sausage

Sgt, if you do not mind, can you explain how that happened, I have hard times imagining how that could possibly happen unless he had some unlucky business ventures.

i
Reply to
Ignoramus16071

Not sgt, but my own anecdote-

my wife has family which has won the lottery twice. The first time they burned through the money and had to go back to work. Jury is still out on win #2.

bankruptcy also in my wife's family and she wonders why I want to save as much as I do.

There are people like that out there...

Reply to
jIM

Have you looked at the stats on lottery winners? Pretty much every one of them declare bankruptcy after a few years. You get a lumpsum of cash, quit your job and you start spending as if you had a regular income of that much. Except after a few years, you run out and you can't ramp your spending back down.

Gett> > > Uncle (in-law): Bankruptcy, 1999 after burning through a 6.2 million

Reply to
wyu

"Sgt.Sausage" wrote

[snip other good detail for brevity in this reply]

Sgt., thanks for sharing your specific experiences with recklessness in saving and spending. For what it's worth, I think such anecdotal data does persuade others. Maybe not after the first telling, nor after the second, but the point is bound to get to at least some people sooner rather than later through the sharing of examples like this.

Reply to
Elle

Here's the real power of compounding; The 'indians' sold Manhattan for $24 in 1626, 380 years ago. There's no reason to thing that investments would have returned less than the 10% we've seen in the last 100 or so years, so 1.1^380 $1.2x10^17, this is a 1 with 17 zeros after it. I can't even pronounce this. Even at 6%, it turns into $99 billion dollars.

JOE

Reply to
joetaxpayer

15 zeros = quadrillion, thanks you are right, so $120 quadrillion, more than the entire wealth of the world right now, I believe.
Reply to
joetaxpayer

Its fun to play with big numbers, but I was wondering if there was any extant centuries-old financial institution which you could manage an investment in. I did a quick look at google/wiki and saw:

Oldest extant banks are from Italy. One claims 1472. German from 1500s, UK from 1700. The Vatican Bank isnt that old. The oldest reference to interest bearing savings account I could find was 1807 British postal bank.

Oldest extant businesses are family businesses going back 1500 years in Japan and 1000 years in Europe. Oldest extant stock corporation I'm aware is the Hudson Bay Company from 1670. They are a department store these days. Wiki lists stock corporations in the trade area starting in 1600, but those didnt last.

Amsterdam Stock Exchange claims to be oldest from 1602.

I'm am sure there are older private financial insitutions.

Reply to
rick++

I disagree with the phrase 'can easily retire with a pretty hefty portfolio'. It's not that simple-- the underlying assumption is that one has steady positive returns.

We've been through the highest 30 years of returns on equity assets ever recorded. Had you invested that money in 1929 (to take an extreme example) you would barely have gotten it back (up about 50% I think) after inflation.

Similarly if you had invested in 1905, you would have made a lot of money, and then lost 80% of it in the last 5 years of your investment.

1966 would have been another bad year to so invest-- after inflation, you probably would have been in the late 80s before you caught up on yourself (although to be fair, you would have done well after that as well).

It would be a mistake to think that such excellent returns will be easily duplicated in future 30 year periods.

*however*

as long as costs (MERs) are low, and overall returns are positive, then buy and hold (diversified) is still a good strategy.

And living below your income is always a good idea.

Reply to
darkness39

I am guessing Rothschild Bank was around then.

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however they paid the price on the Continent during the rise of Naziism.

Bank of England, which was originally privately owned, was founded in

1694 by Isaac Newton, amongst others.

If you held your money in German marks, of course, you were obliterated in 1924 in the Germany hyperinflation. Eastern Europe you had your money confiscated when the communists came to power.

The investment du choix used to be the UK government consol. A perpetual bond paying 2 1/2% (no redemption date). I think Sir Isaac Newton issued the first one in the 1690s. Although answers.com says

1751

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Now my father was given a few of these in 1945. They were the standard way of putting your money aside for an inheritance. Unfortunately UK inflation 1945-1990 destroyed their value completely. It was also the case that the UK government, during the 1930s, unilaterally lowered the rate of interest they paid (they always had the legal right to do this, but had never exercised it).

A better investment might be real estate. But you have to pay the land taxes on the way. All of the truly great fortunes in the world (that are multi generational) have a significant content of real estate *and* real estate in countries that were politically stable (the United States might not count: remember 1861-65?).

Robert Shiller (SECOND Edition, Irrational Exuberance) makes a pretty good case (using data from Amsterdam since the 1600s, and US data from

1890) that real increases in housing price (adjusted for quality improvements) are very small-- less than 0.8% real per annum in the US case.

Stock investment (in limited liability joint stock company) is really such a new phenomenon (1854 in the UK case, I think) that it's hard to say whether it is a good investment or not. We don't really have enough data to make that assertion. Particularly when you note that whilst the US market has performed very well, many of the world's largest stock markets in 1890 (Cairo, Buenos Aires, Berlin, Vienna, Budapest were apparently all in the top 10) subsequently went to 0.

Reply to
darkness39

Er? Looking at Shiller's data and adjusting for dividends and inflation, it appears I would have gotten almost 9000% return (Jan. 1929 to June 2004).

Er (again)? Same data set (this time starting in Jan. 1905) tells me I would have lost 24% of my total return over the 5 years ending June

2004. Substantial, but not 80%.

If you invested in January 1966 (the high point of the year) you would have been back to even by August of 1967. Perhaps you're thinking of the 70's bear market? Investing in Jan. of '73 (the top) was a harsh reality, not breaking even until Jan. of '85.

Don't forget to check my math,

-Will

Reply to
Will Trice

As Alfred Einstein put it so well "The miracle of the 8th wonder of the world" COMPOUNDING.Its amazing either you get it or you don't ,once you see those mutual fund shares you reinvest start compounding on top of each other over time,thats all it takes and eventually compounding will do some real heavy lifting of the portfolio

messagenews: snipped-for-privacy@51g2000cwl.googlegroups.com...

we've all been trying to tell folks for

Reply to
CW

ALFRED Einstein? The Musicologist and famous composer? I was not aware he spoke much on the subject. How very interesting.

Reply to
kastnna

While killing time on snopes recently I saw that they added a piece on Einstein/compounding. It seems he maybe never said that. I remember hearing the quote attributed to Ben Franklin upmteen years ago so I'm skeptical. But I'm just plain skeptical anyway.

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OK Skip I'll try to tie this to financial planning. Snopes is a good place to look up emails you think are scams because much more often than not, you'll find it there. For money topics a good starting point to blow a bunch of time is:
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-Tad

PS and Mikey did NOT die from pop rocks & pepsi!

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Reply to
Tad Borek

Tad,

Iteresting. Either way ALFRED never said anything about it. Albert may or may not have.

Reply to
kastnna

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