This Retirement Strategy Will Not Win
Transcript
Here’s your “Slap in the Face” Award for this week. It’s a real beauty, let me tell you.
I’m sure I don’t have to tell you about how badly prepared the boomers are for retirement. It’s a mess. But I came across a couple of new numbers concerning retirement funding that are so loony, I found hard them to believe.
Here’s one…
Scratch-Off Cards Won’t Fund Your Retirement
A full 40% of us actually consider winning the lottery a viable alternative to saving for retirement. Let me repeat that: A recent survey found 40% of us think winning the lottery is a viable alternative to saving and investing.
The chances of hitting one of the big jackpots from a set of scratch-off cards are about 1 in 300 million. And the reason people report they believe this loony thinking? Most consider hitting the lottery more likely than being able to save anything for retirement.
Huh?
But here’s where it gets really nuts.
Forty percent of people in this country think this is a possibility, but 60% of millennials think winning the lottery is a reasonable – quote, reasonable – way to prepare for retirement.
Could someone please explain to me how 60% of an entire generation of people think winning the lottery is a reasonable expectation?
At age 58, one-third of boomers have nothing saved for their retirement. Half of them are going to live on Social Security in retirement. That’s crazy enough.
The numbers seem to be getting worse by the generation.
But what can we expect from a country that has a presidential candidate who claims he can provide health coverage for everyone that won’t cost anything?
At some point, the hallucinations around money that are going on in this country have to end. The long-term effects that this financial literacy crisis has on our country can’t be measured. When a huge percentage of an entire generation is living in la-la land about retirement, something has to change.
I only wish I had the solution. Maybe when our kids are as focused on finance, money management and retirement funding as they are on their phones, scratch-off cards, social media and computer games, then we can get somewhere.
Good investing,
Steve