I learn the term vested means by the time I can use any of this match money global carbon emissions need to have peaked that I’m supposed to be able to take more risks because I’m young and there’s time for the market to sort itself out I take the financial checkup & I’m in great shape on budgeting & debt because the only way to escape that college dream, to pay off that diploma (I didn’t even get it framed) was to wear frugal like a name I had to learn interest compounds daily & doesn’t get rounded until the very last calculation so it mattered, staying on Income Based Repayment advancing that due date in case something happened & I couldn’t pay I’m not rated so great at saving or protection—whatever that means perhaps because I haven’t written a will & didn’t get short term disability insurance cause I’d have to pay for it I think they—those people writing these checkups don’t know what it’s like now to be able to pay my rent a month ahead & my bills quarterly to buy shoes & pants when mine are in pieces to get healthier groceries, fillings done when I need them & avoid plastic in most of my household supplies I’m not paycheck to paycheck maybe I’m not at 10 to 15% savings per month but it’s only been 2.5 years since debt freedom & I had to do a lot of catching up after neglecting myself for 10 years I pull up the tool to help verify options that don’t support fossil fuels or for-profit prisons or deforestation or war weapons & find there’s not one I can pick that gets all A’s my best bets score C’s in gender equality, great way to support my sisters so I try out some of the tools to estimate what I’m supposed to save I’m asked to set a retirement & death age it defaults to 67 and 96, respectively. I type 70 & 100. Then change 70 back to 67. I start reading the plan documents different rules for if you’re 59.5 vs 62.5 or 65 or something realize I’m skimming Realize we globally have to reach carbon neutral before I will reach retirement age & I don’t believe in the market that it will always trend up or even that it should lists of letter combos, percentages, inception dates remind me of student debt remind me that I was already trapped before I saw the trick I don’t like this I’m not interested in risk so I email a parent how does one find a trustworthy financial advisor? what’s the difference, between pre-tax and Roth? why I am even looking at this with record extinctions, pollinator colony collapse, worsening drought, fires, floods, hurricanes? with news of microplastics in lungs, in placenta, in the Mariana trench? & I get back the understanding—not put so bluntly that I have to learn this whether I opt in or not because I will need to understand my parent’s investments when it is time to sort their affairs better to discuss it now than learn in grief but I am already grieving & I find myself wanting to call my employer & yell, if you want to vest my future, spend this money planting trees! because that’s the investment I need don’t tell me these fake numbers have anything to do with my future & the chances that I’ll actually want to be living in it.
From: Vol.10 N.01 – Private: The Transformative Now
401(k)s
by
Storm Ainsely