Happy birthday, Tom!

That's a very thoughtful thing to do, Gud.

Happy birthday, Tom!

Ok, I know right now is a silly time to check on the old 401k, but I haven’t looked at DH’s in a long time and had forgotten how to get to it, so getting a notice in the mail that included the website motivated me to look it up. Of course, I could not log in, so I called Customer Care or whatever they call it who could not help me log in because it was after business hours but did immediately tell me my balance so at least I know it hasn’t completely vanished like I sometimes worry it has. So then I looked at my current 401k and the handy calculator that tells me I will never be able to retire and noticed that while if I wait until I’m 65 to retire I will have more money than if I retire at 59 1/2, the gap between what I will have to live on and what they think should be my target doesn’t change much. And when I started trying to figure out if I could start drawing on a 401k while still working (answer unclear, please try again) I came across something that said if you separate from your job after you are 55 you can withdraw with no penalties and that made me feel *much* better about the prospect of my department being cut or the whole company going out of business. I’d still be in pretty dire straits but not nearly as bad as I thought

if you separate from your job after you are 55 you can withdraw with no penalties

Correct.

Reference: [link]

(Scroll down the list of exceptions to the one for "Separation from service.")

Thanks for finding that!

Regrets. I told DH at the beginning of the year that I wanted to pull everything out of the stock market before he took office. I didn't because I hoped it would just be volatile, but that in the long term it would recover. I should have gone with my first instinct. Today is a bloodbath before opening. This man is not only going to drive us into a Depression, but then he is going to top it off by starting a nuclear war. I can't understand why anyone supports this insanity. eta: When I looked earlier, it was down 11%, now it is "only" down 3%. I have to stop looking.

Happy Birthday Scotland...sorry it's belated.

::bagpipes::

I called my dad the other day and ended up ranting at him for I don't know how long. I haven't said anything to him about politics in a long time because I know he is super conservative (except he thinks minimum wage should be higher and we should have some form of universal healthcare) but I just lost it.

And I went on and on. He kept saying that everything is catastrophizing and blowing things out of proportion and nothing will be that bad.

We ended the call and I was more mad at myself for just keeping quiet for so long. I sent him a bunch of news articles about various things and he has dismissed them.

And the tarrifs happened. Dad has a PhD in economics he taught it and was an adjunct professor for 20 years teaching international trade and something else. I just can't believe he can be ok with these tarrifs and the formula that was used to make them.....

I've seen speculation that they used ChatGPT because , supposedly, if you ask it put tarrifs on all countries it gives the same formula.

I don't know how things are going to go with me and Dad but he just keeps saying things aren't that bad . Ugh