401K down 15%, Advice?

BAMAboy18

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Oct 11, 2020
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I'm obviously not a financial wiz (or I'd be rich) Spent my 401K on commercial property about 20 years ago that disappeared in my divorce, along with so much more.
I'm 58 and WAY behind now. Probably have to work until I take my dirt nap.
Employer only matches 3%,
I contribute 10%. It's very unsettling to watch it dwindling down, and my instinct says "DO SOMETHING, SAVE ME!!" But I've read that is not the thing to do, as most people miss the rebound. I don't see a rebound happening. My plan is in Vanguard growth. I've looked at the other options available to me, but they all seem to be dropping pretty much the same rate. At a 3% match I feel like it's all for not.
Any advice, suggestions?
I'm pretty sure I could do better (and have) investing in guns & ammo.
 
Take a look at the SP500 price over the last 60 years and then look at the last 20 years. We’ve had a crazy long bull run but that doesn’t mean things won’t rebound. The 60 year timeline also shows that things generally increase in value (because things are produced and efficiencies are achieved) so pulling out during a downturn really doesn’t make sense. Probably the worst decision is to pull money out right now.

Since you’re 58, I would guess you will see things come back to where we were before this downturn (might be 5-10 years though).

Now is this the time to put more $ into the market? Up to you, but it is certainly a better time than 8 months ago. My personal opinion is that the economy will either (a) recover or (b) cease to exist. I’m not betting on b just yet.
 
I can afford, and do want to increase my contributions, I've just been hesitant.
It's "advice".....

download (2) (1).jpeg


Doc
 
First thing you do is repeat , "Fuck Joe Biden" and "Fuck Socialism" over and over and over until you and your friends and relatives learn to stop voting for leftist assholes.

Second thing is to NOT sell. Right now you have a 15% loss on paper, when you sell at the bottom of the market you will set those losses in stone and be poor forever. Then increase your contributions to 15% of so or maybe hit the max for your age. More now will hopefully be more later.

I'm down 11-15% or so depending on the day. Basically my dollars are buying more shares for less at the moment. I'm planning on my investment portfolio making 2-5% in dividends and I look for stocks with decent dividends and with a good long history of producing dividends, like Coke. If my dreams of retirement come true next year this will produce some cash for my use. I figure $300K will net maybe 4% a year or an additional $1,000 a month average if all goes well.

Between my pensions and Social Security will be the money I use for day to day living. The dividends will stay in my money market until needed. Car down payments, cruises or heart transplants, whatever the expense there will be some ready cash if all goes well. The money in my IRA and 401K is getting the shit beat out of it these days and is down about 15%, it is going to sit there until I absolutely have to make withdrawals.

Like most people, I will not have millions in the bank when I retire. I will have enough. The one thing I did 30 years ago was find a job with a pension. I was out hunting for a new gig and found a municipal job with a "5 and 50" pension. work a minimum of 5 years and be over fifty and you could draw money. It paid 25% less than comparable jobs that had shitty pensions and weak 401K plans. The thing is, that pension is worth over a million dollars over 30 years so it fills in a gap nicely.

My brother's plan was and still is to marry a stupid widow, he only dates widows and they seem to give him all the money he wants. He has no pension and when our mother dies he is going to loot her house like a fucking robber and steal everything worth a Nickle to sell. He has no savings, no IRA, no 401K nothing. He had a ghetto house on six acres. When developers wanted to buy his shithole house and tear it down to use the property for a road into a development he refused their $800,000 offer and demanded a million bucks. They simply bought the neighbors less desirable property for $250K and made that work.

So my asshole brother got $300K when he sold his ghetto house, not $800K. He is currently living on the house money and has no plans to work again EVER. He retired( got fired for not showing up) eleven years ago at 50 and has spent the last decade on welfare, Medicaid, milking unemployment, scamming the elderly and dating widows to make ends meet. If you like fucking saggy depressed women, this is the life. In a few years he will try and draw Social Security and they will give him about $600 a month since he has no reportable income since 2010. His current squeeze has told my wife about his plans for wealth when our mom dies.

Our mom is 80 and shows no signs of croaking anytime soon. She has very little money in the bank and pisses it away like a drunk. She will outlive her money and reverse mortgage her house in the near future. When she passes away, we will own some tacky furniture and the usual old people crap, a door dinged to death BMW and a fucking poodle. My asshole brother will get a job stocking shelves at Wal Mart until he dies and will call me every month to ask for money.

Your plan is still better than that one, so brighten up bro.
 
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First thing you do is repeat , "Fuck Joe Biden" and "Fuck Socialism" over and over and over until you and your friends and relatives learn to stop voting for leftist assholes.

Second thing is to NOT sell. Right now you have a 15% loss on paper, when you sell at the bottom of the market you will set those losses in stone and be poor forever. Then increase your contributions to 15% of so or maybe hit the max for your age. More now will hopefully be more later.

I'm down 11-15% or so depending on the day. Basically my dollars are buying more shares for less at the moment. I'm planning on my investment portfolio making 2-5% in dividends and I look for stocks with decent dividends and with a good long history of producing dividends, like Coke. If my dreams of retirement come true next year this will produce some cash for my use. I figure $300K will next maybe 4% a year or an additional $1,000 a month average.

Between my pensions and Social Security will be the money I use for day to day living. The dividends will stay in my money market until needed. Car down payments, cruises or heart transplants, whatever the expense there will be some ready cash if all goes well. The money in my IRA and 401K is getting the shit beat out of it these days and is down about 15%, it is going to sit there until I absolutely have to make withdrawals.
You could also move it to an all cash position and stop the bleeding. Let it sit till it’s time to come back into the market. You won’t make gains above contributions but you won’t lose anything either
 
If you plan to retire at 67-68 and you are 58 now
RIDE IT OUT

The "do something" is like passing pointless gun control after the news talks about a shooting, it won't help you unless you have inside information on something like Pelosi

I am not a financial guy, I am a buy something I like and hold it forever guy
I have been burned on a few, but overall in 30 years of investing I am way ahead


I took a coffeehouse portfolio approach after crashing and burning on some individual stock picks

This is a copy and paste of a RANDOM one I googled, the idea is easy

1658411050856.png


7-10 big funds that have low cost and a decent history of returns (some say you can do this with 2-3 funds, I like the 7-10 plan)

I would add a few to the ones above, add a large S&P 500 ETF and also added a large Energy ETF, and also a large index 1000 fund

I have very little in international and very little in bonds
just keep plowing money into them, they are all about to go on sale.

check out bogleheads forums

My advice is worth what you paid for it. ;)
 
You could also move it to an all cash position and stop the bleeding. Let it sit till it’s time to come back into the market. You won’t make gains above contributions but you won’t lose anything either


I know people who do this and in the short term it works. The problem is that unless you are an astute market watcher you miss the upturn by a few months and lose out on the biggest part of the gains when the market returns. So it works to stop the losses and it misses the major gains as well.

I had a co-worker who was a serious flat earth type and hated investing and hated stocks. He refused to participate in the matching 401K because fuck them. The problem was that they matched a flat $60 to $120 bucks a payday. By not investing you basically lost $1.50 to $3 bucks an hour in pay. He was fucking hard headed.

It took a year to get this rock to understand that if he simply "invested" in a money market savings account and earned the .05% interest a month they would give him a 100% return on his money. You put in $60 bucks, they GIVE you $60 bucks and you made 100% on your "investment. Finally he started doing it after missing nearly two years of this. When he retired, he had something like $20-25,000 in his money market and was elated.

The important thing is do put away something, if you want to leave it in cash, it is still better than being 65 and living with a 75 y/o woman with floppy tits and licking her crack to get your bills paid. Ask my brother,,,,,lol.
 
I know people who do this and in the short term it works. The problem is that unless you are an astute market watcher you miss the upturn by a few months and lose out on the biggest part of the gains when the market returns. So it works to stop the losses and it misses the major gains as well.

I had a co-worker who was a serious flat earth type and hated investing and hated stocks. He refused to participate in the matching 401K because fuck them. The problem was that they matched a flat $60 to $120 bucks a payday. By not investing you basically lost $1.50 to $3 bucks an hour in pay. He was fucking hard headed.

It took a year to get this rock to understand that if he simply "invested" in a money market savings account and earned the .05% interest a month they would give him a 100% return on his money. You put in $60 bucks, they GIVE you $60 bucks and you made 100% on your "investment. Finally he started doing it after missing nearly two years of this. When he retired, he had something like $20-25,000 in his money market and was elated.

The important thing is do put away something, if you want to leave it in cash, it is still better than being 65 and living with a 75 y/o woman with floppy tits and licking her crack to get your bills paid. Ask my brother,,,,,lol.
Yes it’s not for the average investors, you must be tuned into the market. You could also have someone manage your 401k for you as well.

As for matching, anyone who doesn’t use and max out their 401k every year is a fool. I’ve averaged 42k per year between matching and contributions for the last 10 years. When we have profit sharing I don’t put it in my 401k. Cost me in taxes but it would count against my match and annual max contributions. I just take it out it in IRa’s for the kids and wife and then for myself I do backdoor roths. I didnt lose any value in 2020 because I did what I said above and put it back as soon as it started to pick up. I’m down about 12% this year but I’ll ride it out. re-evaluate after the mid terms.
 
DAMN, that's a lot of advice in such a short time.......
Sort of a "snap shot" of the panic going on in the investment world of the so called experts.
No one knows what the future will bring.
If you are taking advice from people looking over the transom (financial history) then STOP.
They will run your ship aground.
Listen to the guy on the front deck with the lead weight on a line with knots in it. He's plotting out future.



No bottom, / Mark four, / Quarter less four, / Quarter less five, / Half twain, / Quarter twain…
Quarter less four, / Half twain, / Quarter twain, / Mark twain, / Quarter less twain, / Nine and a half feet, / Nine feet, / Eight and a half feet.
 
15% of total invested funds or 15% since a year ago?


Both for the most part. Money invested this year is losing at a slower rate but there is FAR less of it.

I'm not panicking just yet. But, if the Democrats do another fraud election like 2020 and somehow magically get 81 million vaporous votes again, then we are fucked and it might be time to panic.
 
markets like this is where you start moving more money into indexed universal life insurance.
All fine and good as long as the policy holder has a job and can keep paying the premiums. The minute there is a "hick up" in his life like no job, debilitating illness, waiting a year for SSDI to kick in or a divorce... The policy cancels and the insurance company keeps his money.

  • Indexed universal life (IUL) insurance policies provide greater upside potential, flexibility, and tax-free gains.
  • This type of life insurance offers permanent coverage as long as premiums are paid.
  • Some of the drawbacks include caps on returns and no guarantees as to the premium amounts or market returns.
  • In general, these policies are best for those with a large up-front investment who are seeking options for a tax-free retirement
 
All fine and good as long as the policy holder has a job and can keep paying the premiums. The minute there is a "hick up" in his life like no job, debilitating illness, waiting a year for SSDI to kick in or a divorce... The policy cancels and the insurance company keeps his money.

  • Indexed universal life (IUL) insurance policies provide greater upside potential, flexibility, and tax-free gains.
  • This type of life insurance offers permanent coverage as long as premiums are paid.
  • Some of the drawbacks include caps on returns and no guarantees as to the premium amounts or market returns.
  • In general, these policies are best for those with a large up-front investment who are seeking options for a tax-free retirement
100% you dont over extend...like a idiot lol

need to be in it for 12-15 years or its a break even all things equal, once you get into 15+ years the money gets "real"

its just another tool of wealth management that can become generational wealth if planned properly because its compound interest on both the cash value side as well as the death benefit side

and with the added death benefit, you can possibly drop one of your current policies moving those payments to the ULI for same dath benefit $

i just started 2 for my kids (one each)..should have started earlier but i didnt think of it for children...dumb ass

can be used for education as well like a 529 pla

additionally when they get to a age of your choosing the money can be transferred, no trust needed

can be grandpa helping buy the "forever house" when they are 35-40 if you see fit, as well as the death benefit that has accumulated as well

the real benefit is the cash value doesnt "drop" no matter how the market does

now you are capped by a percentage of investment sector and you wont get 20% if the market goes up 20% like it has the last few years but the cash value of the account...if it 300K and the market tanks...is still 300k

think of it as a wealth preservation and transfer more than a investment
 
Cut and pasted from Feb 27, 2020:


A wise financial advisor once told me:

When the market tanks you can do one of three things.
1) You can do nothing, the market will recover along with your investments.
2) You can sell, you will lose money since you are selling while the market is down.
3) You can buy, you will likely make money since you will be buying while the market is low in anticipation of the recovery.

Your choice.

Thank you,
MrSmith


I believe this will work until the final collapse. Then (other than listening to AJ) it won't matter what you do.

Re-Thank you,
MrSmith
 
I agree with most of the others--DON'T SELL ANYTHING in your portfolio during times like these. This is the absolute worst time to sell; if the market drops further after you've sold, it won't make a damn bit of difference to you because you've already locked in your losses. The only "advantage" you'd have is capitol "gains" tax losses.

I disremember the exact numbers in "events over the years"; (but the majority [and by 'majority', I mean like 95%] of advisers will tell you not to sell because) if you were out of the market for the 15 days when the DOW gained 800+ (on those single specific days) in the last 10 years, you would have missed out on ~40% of the last 10 years' uphill march. (the numbers I can't remember is "15 / 10"... it might have been 12 days over 8 years, 20 over 15...) That is to say, all you need to do to crush a portfolio is hit-and-miss your buy and sell dates by "15" days, and theoretically your portfolio would look like it did in year 'ONE', instead of having the ~40% gains it could have in year Ten.

If you can afford it, now's the time to pour more into your investments even if the market's falling--the principle of "dollar cost averaging" will mean that all the investments you make during the dip you buy into will reduce your stock/bond/mutual purchase price and show bigger profits when the market turns around.

If I can assume that your retirement is ~10 years away--so long as the US economy recovers enough to keep Wall Street viable--your portfolio should look just fine by the time you retire. Remember that WS "investments" aren't an indicator of the strength of the economy--they're a monetary reflection of our willingness to gamble on the anticipation of the economy's strength/weakness. A matter of semantics maybe, but WS is not an great indicator of the economy. For that you consult the GDP, PPI, CPI, GND, etc.

The only reason I'd condone "selling" is if you were to convert your 401k into a Roth IRA. There are some excellent articles (Google the subject) about long-term tax avoidance concerning the expectation of higher future taxes and their impact on 401k funds (which would be exempted permanently from paying taxes if one withdrew ["sold"] 401k money and converted it into RothIRA money--but that would require paying the tax on the 401k now--and that 401k withdrawal would put you into a higher tax bracket, so that's also something to consider [along with your current tax bracket]). RothIRAs are much better tax-avoidance vehicles, they're just harder to start because most employers don't offer them, and most won't contribute/match--at least to my knowledge--I've been retired for 15 years, so what do I know.

Lastly... if you can afford it after this recovery, try and keep 15-20% of the gross portfolio "socked away" in fixed-income vehicles that pay interest or dividends and are strong against market dips-- municipal bonds, CDs, etc. This bunch of money isn't meant for spending, it's meant for holding and waiting for the next market crash. Statistically, the market drops badly every 2-4 years... the DOW & NASDAQ usually suffer 10-20% losses with "about" that regularity. The goal is to keep this stash aside and wait for the crash to invest it; take out 20% again when it peaks, and hold that 20% as the next 'stash'. This separate money group is completely separate from your 50/50, 70/30, 60/40 "stock/bond" distribution in your portfolio. For example, my portfolio is currently split this way: 20% fixed-income "just waiting" to buy the dip, 60% fixed-income, and 20% stocks. I converted to this position last August 2021 from a 60% fixed-income/40% stocks position because I didn't like the political chances. I missed some of the high, but as said before, you can't time it out; take your gains and don't look back.

No offense intended; I didn't mean to sound condescending if you understood these ideas already.
 
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If all else fails. I've got a car that looks close enough to Mad Max's Interceptor that with two 40 gallon takes and a blue healer I'll be fine roaming the waste lands shooting angry gay bikers wearing ass-less chaps. The last thing the Lord Humongous will see is a vaporous red cloud of his own brains and then his minions can move along.
 
I'm down >15% since January 1 and I'm holding my position for a couple of reasons. Number one I'm invested in Mutual Funds that are holding stocks and bonds from a very wide selection of companies both US and Foreign. These companies are not all going out of business - it's gonna recover unless this is *The End* (and it's not) and if it is it won't matter how much money you have there will be nothing to buy or eat. If we panic and sell under conditions like this we never should have been invested to begin with.

My second point is that all through history when these types of corrections occur the recovery is usually brutally fast and impossible to time "buying back in" so you'll lose yer shirt. If anything, now is the time to buy good stuff because it is at a very low point and you'll make a killing when this whole thing turns out to be a panic (which it is) regardless of whether this progresses to a full blown ass kicking Recession or not. Which it most likely will. Now is the time to sit still or buy. Sell and move to cash and you ae writing your losses in stone.

Remember 2008 when it hit the fan? My brother (a dentist...lot's of money) lost *Half* of his retirement and sold to keep from losing it all - Our Dad, holding almost all the same investments, held and sat tight. 2 years later Dad had all his $ back and a small profit. My Brother had to work another 10 years to get back what he lost.

Now is not panic time - it's too late to sell now. Hold yer position and buy more if you can. We might progress to the Mother of All Recessions but we *will* recover and in 5 years this will all be a panic attack.

VooDoo
 
I agree with most of the others--DON'T SELL ANYTHING in your portfolio during times like these. This is the absolute worst time to sell; if the market drops further after you've sold, it won't make a damn bit of difference to you because you've already locked in your losses. The only "advantage" you'd have is capitol "gains" tax losses.

I disremember the exact numbers in "events over the years"; (but the majority [and by 'majority', I mean like 95%] of advisers will tell you not to sell because) if you were out of the market for the 15 days when the DOW gained 800+ (on those single specific days) in the last 10 years, you would have missed out on ~40% of the last 10 years' uphill march. (the numbers I can't remember is "15 / 10"... it might have been 12 days over 8 years, 20 over 15...) That is to say, all you need to do to crush a portfolio is hit-and-miss your buy and sell dates by "15" days, and theoretically your portfolio would look like it did in year 'ONE', instead of having the ~40% gains it could have in year Ten.

If you can afford it, now's the time to pour more into your investments even if the market's falling--the principle of "dollar cost averaging" will mean that all the investments you make during the dip you buy into will reduce your stock/bond/mutual purchase price and show bigger profits when the market turns around.

If I can assume that your retirement is ~10 years away--so long as the US economy recovers enough to keep Wall Street viable--your portfolio should look just fine by the time you retire. Remember that WS "investments" aren't an indicator of the strength of the economy--they're a monetary reflection of our willingness to gamble on the anticipation of the economy's strength/weakness. A matter of semantics maybe, but WS is not an great indicator of the economy. For that you consult the GDP, PPI, CPI, GND, etc.

The only reason I'd condone "selling" is if you were to convert your 401k into a Roth IRA. There are some excellent articles (Google the subject) about long-term tax avoidance concerning the expectation of higher future taxes and their impact on 401k funds (which would be exempted permanently from paying taxes if one withdrew ["sold"] 401k money and converted it into RothIRA money--but that would require paying the tax on the 401k now--and that 401k withdrawal would put you into a higher tax bracket, so that's also something to consider [along with your current tax bracket]). RothIRAs are much better tax-avoidance vehicles, they're just harder to start because most employers don't offer them, and most won't contribute/match--at least to my knowledge--I've been retired for 15 years, so what do I know.

Lastly... if you can afford it after this recovery, try and keep 15-20% of the gross portfolio "socked away" in fixed-income vehicles that pay interest or dividends and are strong against market dips-- municipal bonds, CDs, etc. This bunch of money isn't meant for spending, it's meant for holding and waiting for the next market crash. Statistically, the market drops badly every 2-4 years... the DOW & NASDAQ usually suffer 10-20% losses with "about" that regularity. The goal is to keep this stash aside and wait for the crash to invest it; take out 20% again when it peaks, and hold that 20% as the next 'stash'. This separate money group is completely separate from your 50/50, 70/30, 60/40 "stock/bond" distribution in your portfolio. For example, my portfolio is currently split this way: 20% fixed-income "just waiting" to buy the dip, 60% fixed-income, and 20% stocks. I converted to this position last August 2021 from a 60% fixed-income/40% stocks position because I didn't like the political chances. I missed some of the high, but as said before, you can't time it out; take your gains and don't look back.

No offense intended; I didn't mean to sound condescending if you understood these ideas already.
So many ways to skin the cat and get return. Per the end of your post I went even further out on the divvy cash spectrum to 100% dividend income focus around 2009 and reinvest 100%. Watching unrealized cap gains evaporate w/o having extracted a dime of compensation is a tough thing to watch....which is why I have one tech growth fun flyer I play with and that's it. When I get heavy in a sector or over 2-3% allocated in a particular holding depending on the company I trim. The beauty of having monthly/quarterly income streams is to always have cash to invest when something I want more of is on sale. Plus I don't have to attempt to time a top and a bottom when inevitable bears/recessions occur. It ain't sexy, but damn does it work. Especially at times like these when market participant's can't distinguish quality from junk then one can buy filet mignon at hamburger prices. This is when I appreciate the passive ETF owner who has no idea what they own inside that ticker and punch out b/c they read a tweet from a doomsdayer that the world ends tomorrow. Drawdowns will happen, what one does during that time determines profiting or missing out.
 
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Cut and pasted from Feb 27, 2020:


A wise financial advisor once told me:

When the market tanks you can do one of three things.
1) You can do nothing, the market will recover along with your investments.
2) You can sell, you will lose money since you are selling while the market is down.
3) You can buy, you will likely make money since you will be buying while the market is low in anticipation of the recovery.

Your choice.

Thank you,
MrSmith


I believe this will work until the final collapse. Then (other than listening to AJ) it won't matter what you do.

Re-Thank you,
MrSmith
That wise investment advisor makes his money based on a percentage of your assets under his management. When you pull funds, his income decreases. That’s not to say I suggest pulling funds, by the way.

95% of financial advisors are salesmen that happen to peddling financial products. Be skeptical. Do your own due diligence and pay attention to what you’re paying for their “expertise.”

That’s the best investment advice anyone will ever get on this forum.
 
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I have been invested with several well known companies for decades and only started to really make money when I took all my money away from them and listened to my Dad who was a very Conservative Investor with simple, powerful rules. The only financial investment help I take now is to read Fisher Investments Daily Commentary - MarketMinder - which over the last few years has rarely been wrong since I have been watching it.


I had money with Merrill Lynch for a decade and they were chuffed to claim they were making me 8% on my money (per year) until we crunched real numbers when my Wife and I pulled all our money out. Basically once you figured in their fees and commissions (they were constantly churning the investments) I made less than half that. I am extremely skeptical of most "consultants" and financial advisors have never made me as much money investing as the notes from Dear Old Dad. Dad's first rule was: This is not a game. We are not gambling and fucking with our lives savings. We only buy long lived stuff that has existed and proven itself to be top dogs and that pays Dividends and you hold it *forever*.

My Vanguard Mutual Fund VWELX was founded in 1929 and is Vanguards oldest fund and the nations oldest balanced fund comprised of stocks and bonds. If you look at the chart is has had ups and downs since 1929 but it is always, over the decades gone up and up. It's in the shitter like everything else right now but it's not going broke - 5 years from now I'll be back in black and then some. If these funds/companies go down money won't matter so I don;t worry about it ever.

Buy great shit - hold it and watch it rise over decades, not months.

VooDoo
 
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I'm obviously not a financial wiz (or I'd be rich) Spent my 401K on commercial property about 20 years ago that disappeared in my divorce, along with so much more.
I'm 58 and WAY behind now. Probably have to work until I take my dirt nap.
Employer only matches 3%,
I contribute 10%. It's very unsettling to watch it dwindling down, and my instinct says "DO SOMETHING, SAVE ME!!" But I've read that is not the thing to do, as most people miss the rebound. I don't see a rebound happening. My plan is in Vanguard growth. I've looked at the other options available to me, but they all seem to be dropping pretty much the same rate. At a 3% match I feel like it's all for not.
Any advice, suggestions?
I'm pretty sure I could do better (and have) investing in guns & ammo.
Look at Treasury I Bills. Theyre paying about 9.5% and completely safe. Downside is you can only buy 10K per year.
 
first, i'd get out of a 'specialized' fund likely with higher management fees and switch over to a s&p 500 index fund. fund manager does pretty much nothing so mgmt fees are lower. plus there are a lot of specialized funds that don't beat the s&p500 over time.

unfortunately this late in the game, there is no way to double or triple without taking a lot of risk.

while the market is down, you are buying stocks cheaper than you were a year ago. if you have spare cash consider upping your salary deferrals, double down so to speak.