What was your end of year return on 401k for 2008?

[ScottFern]

-31%

88% of my portofolio is in stocks.........

 

[AMDZen]

-47%

 

[torpid]

-39%

 

[edro]

-42%

I was going to retire next year, but now I have to hold off until things rebound a little.

 

[Rustler]

DOWN 3% put my 401K in a stable cash option for the time being I get a 2% return but that is better than being down mega dollars............

 

[SunnyD]

+15.6%

I'm not joking.

For Q109 I'm -6.6% though.

 

[Krazy4Real]

-17.76%

At least it's not as bad as some.

Edit: Nevermind that was just for 4th quarter. It turns out I was -34.31% for the year of 2008. Ouch.

 

[SludgeFactory]

-30%, and I started in June. I gave up and started dumping 90% of my contributions into a money market fund in October/November, otherwise it'd probably be -40%.

 

[drum]

Originally posted by: Elganja

Originally posted by: darkxshade
0% It was a foolish decision on my part in the beginning 3 years ago to not put a single dime into my 401k. I decided I needed to save up a bit and pay off some debt first but also because the company did not match for the first year and I quit that job 1.5 years in. My 2nd job didn't match for 6 months. So it subsequently worked out for me since I would be taking a huge hit since 3 years ago was the highs of the stock market. I just started on my 401k this month though which is a great time to start.

there are 2 sides to this all...

yeah a bunch of us lost a ton of money in our 401k's, BUT we all also bought a shit ton of shares for very cheap. The market will rebound and when it does we all will make out

The rest of you can do that if you like. I'll be content to get some money back personally.

 

[loup garou]

-33.23%

 

[drum]

Originally posted by: edro
-42%

I was going to retire next year, but now I have to hold off until things rebound a little.

sometimes you feel like you just can't catch a break ya know?

 

[Glavinsolo]

I have a personal policy to up my contribution rate when things go down hill. So my normal 10% contrib was pushed to 25%. I then bring it back down once things iron out.

-1.5% is my 2008 RoR. Portfolio goes something like this:

20% TGT Retire
20% Bonds
7.5% S&P
7.5% Micro Cap
7.5% Small Value
7.5% Large Value
6% Emerging Markets
6% Intl Small Value
6% Intl Small
6% Intl Large Value
6% Intl Large

I didn't move anything around just increased my contrib.

 

[duragezic]

Originally posted by: akshatp
You dint lose anything. Your 401k probably would have lost 30% of its value due to the market turmoil, so you probably broke even; even after considering the company match

Well I'm out whatever shares the money would've bought me during the time I didn't contribute. The company match minus losses would've still put me ahead a fair amount too.

I looked and I'm down -13.4%. Already got $500 in that puppy!

Another failagezic move was keeping all of my money in a no-interest checking account up until last week. I only need a buffer of maybe $2k in my checking and I had that 8 months ago. I could've probably did the transfer online to my savings account even. But no, waited all this time, earning zero interest. I finally went down and got a checking account with interest at 1.5% APR. Not a huge amount, and I need to look into places like ING or Emigrant, but a couple hundred per year in interest I didn't have before.

I fail.

 

[mizzou]

401k 4%

low risk ft-longterm-w

Oh and my trust fund? -20% I'm going to shoot someone

 

[Turin39789]

-44.6 on one 401k
-40% on the other.

 

[TuxDave]

Originally posted by: SunnyD
+15.6%

I'm not joking.

For Q109 I'm -6.6% though.

The money you made from Madoff doesn't count...

 

[erub]

Not bad, I only lost 19.1%, I was expecting it to be worse. Sucks that my company is dicontinuing the match on 2/20 At least I still have a job..

Down another 9% this year.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Originally posted by: darkxshade
0% It was a foolish decision on my part in the beginning 3 years ago to not put a single dime into my 401k. I decided I needed to save up a bit and pay off some debt first but also because the company did not match for the first year and I quit that job 1.5 years in. My 2nd job didn't match for 6 months. So it subsequently worked out for me since I would be taking a huge hit since 3 years ago was the highs of the stock market. I just started on my 401k this month though which is a great time to start.

I'm in the exact same boat. Everyone said I was a fool for not starting my retirement 2 years ago. They all lost tens of thousands while I floated by with new toys to play with (and paying down my student loan debt of course).

 

[DaWhim]

25%-30% or so