re: How is your 401k doing?

Don't trust a 401K. It's your money at all the risk to you while others make money off you with 0 risk. It's a glorified savings plan.

Not great but better than average. I have always kept my retirement in low risk funds. I gamble with money I can afford to lose...my retirement accounts haven't grown like some but they also have not crashed like some. All about risk tolerance. I look at my retirement accounts as a tax break first and a hedge against losing everything...I have never viewed it as a wealth building device. I have other investments that were bought to build wealth...to varying degrees of success, but my retirement accounts are there for the long haul and I am not comfortable gambling with that pool of money.

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Don't trust a 401K. It's your money at all the risk to you while others make money off you with 0 risk. It's a glorified savings plan.

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It absolutely is a glorified savings plan which comes with about as significant a tax break as middle income earners can get...especially with limits on mortgage interest and property taxes. It being a savings plan with a tax advantage is why I have always kept mine low risk...some of it may still be there someday...inflation is going to eat it up but over a 47 year career it will, if the first 40 years or any indication, be a tidy sum which will facilitate a slightly more financially solid retirement. Mine was never meant to make me wealthy...it was a hedge against retiring with nothing but social security.

Went to Wells Fargo stable fund. Won't make much but it's not losing right now. Will get back in when the market inevitably dips.

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during the thick of covid

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Equities skyrocketed during covid. From the beginning of Covid to the biden inauguration the S&P went up 14.33%

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What commodities?

Long ones

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Cucumbers and bananas

I’m up 10% YTD but probably still 16% lower than it was on 1/1/22

Instead of asking how savings are doing the real question is how have 401k's fared for the middle class over all. The reason no one asks that is because the answer ain't at all pretty...the middle class was sold a bill of goods and bought it because the traditional pension plan was no longer being offered and, having no other real choice, did what Americans have always done and went into it with doe eyed confidence based on nothing more than the lack of a traditional pension plan and hope. The management fees we have paid since the early 80s have always exceeded the wealth generated...and always will. How is this possible??? Because the manager makes the small % charged for trades and management no matter what. They offer all manner of products but really sell the idea of active management because it means more trading and more fees for them...traditionally a money manager and the manager of a traditional pension plan shared the same fiduciary responsibilities regulated by law...in short they had to do the right thing for the investor. They have lobbied to change this to great success...they actively manage your money for their own and their companies benefit and it is perfectly legal and in fact required by law. The retirement saver who placed their money into low risk, low return funds ain't their best customer by a stretch...the saver who actively manages their account is indeed their dream customer...because that saver is trading and paying fees....and those fees have made the manager's more money than the investor has made. This is supported even by manager studies...in fact they brag about it because it means they are making piles of money managing your money without much concern as to how your money is doing. The only way a mark can be conned is for the mark to think they are the con man.

If you really want to get depressed look at your contributions you have made and the corresponding match of your employers over time (you earned your part and "their" part, by the way). Then look at how much of that money has dissapeared in fees...and look at how much interest you have earned overall. Most people look at their savings in the same way they look at their tax refund as their tax liability...ask them how much they made in their retirement savings and they will give you the difference over a given period of time...without considering that almost all of that growth is due to their contributions, not the interest they have earned.

We were sold a bill of goods and it has made money managers wealthy beyond imagination....meanwhile the middle class is worse off than they were when they had a traditional retirement plan, on average.

It is stuck. No movement since 2022. Didn't lose any but also did not gain much. Stagnation is real and it feels more like a loss