I absolutely keep a retirement account. It scares the hell out of me when you hear facts like 60% of American's don't even have $1000 saved, much less a retirement account. My employer makes contributions into it as well, so why wouldn't I have one? Assuming bitcoin continues to take off, I would hope that my fund managers would invest in bitcoin and I could reap the rewards, and if it fails, then I have my retirement money to fall back on.
Currently at the age of 26, I am estimating needing close to 6 to 7 million to retire properly at age 65. Long way to go, but that's why you start it now, so you have time to let it compound. Also that's minimum, I would eventually like to buy a condo in Hawaii and Myrtle Beach. That is an extra 2.5M and 500k respectively. That seems like a large amount of money, but I plan to be a millionaire by the time I am 40 by continuously maxing out my Roth IRA contributions and then pouring the excess into my 401K. If you can learn to live without needing that money, it is really easy to save and you never even know its not getting paid to you.
I used to live in South Carolina, and I can go ahead and tell you that you don't want to move to Myrtle Beach. Go look into Beaufort, SC or better yet (my personal favorite) Bald Head Island, NC ; it's literally a paradise out there, and the investment in land will probably sky rocket as time goes on. Just thought I should go ahead and give you a heads up. Myrtle Beach is now nothing but a bunch of "yankees" (lol) that have taken over the area and is just not enjoyable because of all the people.
Getting back on topic though, I'm just now becoming an "adult" and getting through an internship for an actual job. I would like to have the option (and I'm really thinking about doing this my self) to put my retirement savings into gold and precious metals because of the stability of price/demand no matter the inflation rate of fiat. Am I crazy for thinking this way? Should I just stake up everything in a 41K? I'm still unsure about everything, and I don't think it's necessarily smart to put your investments ALL in bitcoin and gold... but I would like to have somewhat a good chunk of my investment in there.
Thanks for the advice.
Do not put all your retirement money in gold or other precious metals. You will not get anywhere the return you need from those to retire comfortably. I assume your young, which means you have a ton of time to build your retirement which is your advantage. Put as much as you can into mutual funds in your 401k that are designed to mirror the market. You should get around 7 to 8% return a year, which means that every dollar you put in today, will double every 8 years. Ill do some math to show the power of compounding interest.
Over the first 4 years of my career, I was able to save $32,000 into my retirement account, and I am currently 27. That means I have roughly 5 doubling periods ((65-27)/8) (assuming a retirement age of 65) with that money. If I add nothing else and just let that money sit in the stock market, I should have around 1,024,000 by the time I retire.
That shows the power of compounding interest, but the take away is put as much as you can as early as you can, and you'll thank yourself later. By April, I plan to have 30% of my wife's and my income going into our 401k. It would be 10 to 15% more, but her parents left her with over 90k in student loan debt we need to take care of first, but then you better believe we are ramping it up higher. Plus, if you just start putting that in and learn to live without even thinking you have access to another couple hundred a month, it is very easy to do.