Retirement Funds And Our Money

A couple of weeks ago my husband received a letter from his retirement fund. They decided he’s going to get 5% less. Also, it hasn’t been indexed for a couple of years. Basically, this means he has been throwing money into a bottomless hole for a couple of years. The sad part is that here in The Netherlands you’re forced to do this by law. Most people can’t choose how to save for retirement themselves.

I also received a letter and my retirement has been lowered by 0,5% and also hasn’t been indexed for a number of years. Let’s just say it’s less worse compared to my husband’s situation.

The frustrating part is that these morons who are playing with our money on the stock market are doing a bad job. It’s because they are actively investing (which costs a whole bunch) in the wrong things (many property investment scams), take too much risk (index investing is too boring for them) and there’s no incentive to do well (they get paid no matter how bad the performance). Also, they have the power to decide WHEN you’ll get your money back. In my case, that’s probably going to be at the age of 71. This feels like imprisonment!

Well, I need to stop being a complainypants now and look at the bright side of things. We have taken matters into our own hands by aggressively paying off our mortgage (yes, we’re weird people) and index investing (and very boring people). We’ll take care of our own retirement funding (by being frugal and thus retiring waaaaay before the generally accepted retirement age, crazy couple we are!)…and if there’s any money left for us  with our official retirement funds that will be considered a windfall. It sort of does feel good to be taking care of yourself. I feel pretty proud, actually.

How about your retirement funds?

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser