I’m 29, I know perfectly well how the beast works, yada yada. I don’t make any frequent changes to the thing, I’m happy with my current investment elections.
Moreover it’s been bad news these past couple years as most people know. With what I currently contribute from each paycheck my balance has stayed more or less constant for 2010 as the damn market drops.
Yet I still log in at least a few times a week. Yes, log in. To make no changes and to see only negative returns since mid-2008. I get a little thrill when the market jumps a percent or two on a given day and I see that my worth has jumped a bit. I get a bit grumbly when the market declines and my egg has shrunk a bit. I check every deposit and rub my hands together, cackling maniacally, when I see that the company has indeed matched me up to 5% (just like they said they would. Fools! So predictable! The money is mine! ;)) Intellectually I know that these short term ups and downs mean nothing in a long-term retirement account like this, but it’s still like a fun little game for me.
I dunno, it’s just kinda neat? To see, I’ve been working for 5 years and I’ve saved this chunk of change? Despite all the ups and downs I’ve bought this many shares of FUSEX and they’re mine. It’s oddly comforting. I probably won’t see or touch this money for thirty years but I still enjoy logging in to see that, yep, I have indeed actually saved some money.
When I do it at work my older supervisors love to tease me. “So, GameHat, you gonna retire soon?”
I did with my Roth. In fact when I was working nights I actually used to stay up just to watch my stocks go up and down when the market opened. What finally cured me was finally coming into grips with how insignificant today’s day-to-day swings are going to be by the time I’m 65. Now I just look out of curiosity.
It’s kinda fun finally having enough money in where market swings at least start to mean meaningful amounts of money though.
Yes, I did when I had one, until it got old. And yes, when the value drops, it’s some consolation to think of how many shares my contribution buys at that price.
Nah, I personally consider it out of sight, out of mind, to keep me from dipping into it. I know the best long term plan is for me to just keep contributing steadily, and then let it grow. I do look at the quarterly? statements, but that’s it.
My office mate does…apparently, he has quite a bit of company stock tied up in his 401(k), and he becomes very distressed when the price drops.
I look at it at least once a month, when I visit the website to collect my statement. Same for my Roth IRA (though I do meet with my financial advisor on a regular basis).
Good on you for contributing to the plan at your age, OP. Most people don’t think about this stuff until they’re in their 40s or later.
I’m the same age as you and I check mine about once a month, mostly to confirm that my recent contributions have made it there. (Why should I believe what the paystub says? Maybe Richard Pryor is stealing my penny fractions en route!)
I check my Roth IRA balance about as frequently. My index funds and brokerage account about once a week, though I actually execute maybe six trades a year.
I’m 40. I never focused much on my 401K and didn’t much care about the day-to-day gyrations of the stock market - until I started investing in mutual funds outside of my 401K. Now, even though my personal investments are only about a quarter of what my 401K is, I check the stock market several times a day. Like the OP, I’m not terribly bothered by short-term bad news, since retirement is still a couple of decades away. In fact, it’s exciting news when the stock market takes a big ol’ shit in a single day. I know it will come back up eventually.
Check it?
Shit, I created a whole damn Excel spreadsheet that I go to every morning and plug in the closing prices of all the mutual funds I’m invested in.
If the market has a good day (like two days ago) you can see a $4K gain in one day.
Sure this short term stuff is meaningless when retirement is another 25 years away but it’s sort of fun to track kind of like sports scores.
And it keeps you in touch with your funds to see who the performers and underperformers are.
I’m a few years older than the OP (mid 30’s) and don’t check it all that often. First I should say that I really and truly do feel bad for people that have lost a lot of money in their 401K at the same time that they need it. At the same time, I like that I am able to buy so many extra shares of stock at the reduced rates we have now. I fully expect the market to recover and grow substantially between now and the time I retire and these are the shares that will become my nest egg.
I’m mid 30s and check it only quarterly. But I hear all the time that people never save until their 40s, which sounds weird to me. Everyone I know has been putting money into their 401K since almost as soon as they got into the working world.
I’m a good quarter century away from retirement–I get pissed when the share value goes up because that means the shares are costing me more. These days “stocks are on sale” and I want to get as many as I can. Of course, when retirement gets a lot closer I’ll be old, bitter AND obsessed.
I look at the statements when they show up in the mail, and I rebalance things back to our target diversification every year or so, but that’s pretty much it. It’s not real money to me, at all.
I’m sure in 25 years or so it’ll seem a lot more real but for now it’s just a maintenance chore.
I try not to. Unfortunately my bank very helpfully puts the current balance of my RRSP, TFSA and investment account on the summary page of their web banking portal. I’ve had the RRSP for long enough that I don’t know how much I’ve contributed to it so I’m never really sure whether I’m up or down. I just started the TFSA and my investment account so I know exactly how much I’ve contributed, so every time that I go to pay a bill online I can see how much I’m up or down.
I’m trying to train myself to not look at that section of the summary page. Frankly, I don’t want to know how my investments are doing at this stage of my life.
All the options on mine are mutual funds or bonds, no individual stocks. I check it every month or so, and may make an adjustment to the selected funds, but otherwise don’t pay a whole lot of attention to it. I do record my quarterly balance and percentage gain (or loss) in a little spreadsheet that I then use to project ahead to returement.
I got started late (disn’t even have a 401k option until 1997, and I was too irresponsible to start saving on my own before then), so I’m not gonna have much of a bundle when I retire. Looks like I’ll be living on cat food, but at least one of the better brands.
