These people are most certainly Doing It Wrong.
Any "old timers" (meaning those that put money away into 401k through out at least 2 recent market crashes, dotcom and the financial one) here willing to comment as to how their 401k fared? The biggest advantage I see(especially working for the company that does the matching) is that
a) Its a saving account that you cant take money out on a whim
b) Employee matching is free money
c) Youre not paying taxes untill youre ready to take it out and when you do take it out, your tax liability will be lower due to lower income
So you have all these financial advantages in 401k, the disadvantage is that you have to invest these funds wisely.
Yes, you have to invest wisely, but most plans have an S&P 500 index fund for growth and a Bond fund for income (your allocation mix should be more growth when younger, more income when older).
2012 16.00% 2011 2.05% 2010 15.06% 2009 26.46% 2008 −37.00% 2007 5.49% 2006 15.79%
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%26P_500#Total_annual_returns_...
The only question is whether you start planning in advance, or if you want to be hurt.
I'm not expecting to see a single cent from the money the government is robbing me under the pretext of "retirement" to fund its massive ponzi scheme dependant on an always growing working population.
2 years might seem like a lot of time but i started from absolute 0. Now i have few mobile apps in market through which i earn 50% of my sal every month.
Making lists really helps, but even if you loose the list your passion will find a way to get you back to the list.
Keeping this as wallpaper helps too http://d24w6bsrhbeh9d.cloudfront.net/photo/5536250_700b.jpg
Edit: And the only reason i want to quit is freedom
When I made the decision to switch I planned 3 years but life got in the way and eventually it took me 5 years before I was there. People sometimes comment 5 years is a long time to achieve your goals and I always answer that doing something you don't enjoy for 40 years is a lot longer.
- do you have conviction in what you are doing?
- have you taken every step possible to advance the idea or development in your current position (noncompetes obviously restrict what can be done)?
- do you have sufficient money to survive six months if you aren't showing any revenue?
If so any time is the right time.
Perhaps this appeals to the libertarian tendencies of many of us. I personally learned nothing new from this piece, and the factual inaccuracies in it make for a weaker case.
