Stocks/shares investments

Over here, employers get deals on mutual funds, and usually have a special retirement fund set up for employees. Often they will match a certain amount that the employee will put away for retirement. Mine for instance, matches up to 4%. So if I put away 4% of my paycheck into a bunch of selected stocks and bonds (that i get to select from their plans), then my employer will double that amount automatically.

There's also a government supplied pension plan or social security (which is probably similar to the folkepension you have) but it's very small and not worth much (unless you work in a gov. related field, then it's much better). The one offered to you is probably much better then what we have here.

We have a so-called pyramid 3-step system. The bottom of the pyramid is the public pension + the forced pension contribution (called ATP) - which is not necessarily larger than the others, but is intended as the foundation and guarenteee for everyone to be able to survive.

Then we have another kind of pension which is union-based - and since I'm working in a municipality, it's automatically part of my pay. Quite embarrasingly - I have no idea how much I've contributed to it or what I can expect to gain. I believe they automatically invest and as far as I can tell the yearly average return is around 9-10%.

Then we have "individual pensions" - which, I guess, is simply whatever we choose to save on the side through private pension firms or fonds. Not really sure. Not something I've done, anyway.

However, in Denmark - we can't "officially" retire until age 67 under normal circumstances - and, until then, the first two pensions are locked. Meaning, I don't think they can do anything for me in terms of early retirement.

Of course we can retire before then, but then we will have to rely on our own money entirely - since we'll be forced to work as long as we're able.
 
It's not a subject that I find interesting, personally, and I have to force myself to engage with it. Dental work and financial planning occupy a similar place of honour, in my mind. From what I do know, and from what I've seen here, Caddy is a man who knows what he's talking about.
 
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I don't know about bitcoin. I've seen plenty of bubbles, both big and small, and bitcoin right now looks to me a lot like when a bubble is about to burst.

To me the signs of a bubble about to burst are:
- Too fast a growth in little time.
- The growth is much more than it's organically possible.
- The 'average Joe' knows about it and wants a piece of it.

All three have a checkmark right now for bitcoin.
 
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Even with my nonexistent knowledge of these things, everything inside me tells me to stay far away from Bitcoin :)
 
Bitcoin is far past the point where the average joe can afford it now anyways.

Anyone who invested a significant amount in it in prior to 2013 made a huge profit, but right now I wouldn't even dream about getting involved with it.
 
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I have a few small investments in Bitcoin, Litecoin and Etherium. This was back when a friend and I did altcoin mining for a while, and the power consumption vs mining profit was worth it (always do the math first), and we were able to trade for Bitcoin at the time. And then when it wasn't profitable, we liquidated the video card hardware for a good price still. Here's one of the mining rigs:

VsWzDGZ.jpg


However, I would NEVER recommend it as an investment/retirement plan. It's no more than a plaything if you have a few bucks on the side to waste, that doesn't interrupt your regular investments.

Right now Bitcoin is showing a lot of evidence of a bubble, that could burst at any time. If it does, I may consider putting in a few dollars to buy it cheaper after a crash, then wait to see what happens to it over the next 10 years.
 
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So, it turns out I have around $100K invested in the union pension after 9 years employment.

Pretty unfortunate that it's locked until I'm 67 :(
 
It's a nice sum though.

Not really on topic but…two things which might actually have heavy influence in the future anyways are:
1. Fighting aging. We are already at the brink of overcoming aging which is a major cause of deaths these days (most deadly illneses like cancer are aging related). Once that hurdle is overcome, and it might well be in our lifetime, society has to change dramatically and with that our idea of "retirement".

2. If you expect to just miss 1. or you have other plans than just accepting death, you can also invest into a cryonics plan. It's not for your time before your death, but for a chance to actually come back. The technology to "freeze" someone without causing much damage to the body is already here. The technology to "unfreeze" is not. And of course the medicine/technology would need to be far enough in order to cure what you killed you in the first place.

So for me personally these are actually the goals. Not an early retirement. A public retirement system will be something of the past soonish anyways (and personally I only see a universal basic income as a replacement which can work but thats another topic). But I rather spend my money for additional time on this planet.
 
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I have often considered being frozen near the end. Ever since I first heard about it - it seemed like an obvious thing that one would be stupid not to attempt.

Maybe I'm just weird :)
 
It's a nice sum though.

Not really on topic but…two things which might actually have heavy influence in the future anyways are:
1. Fighting aging. We are already at the brink of overcoming aging which is a major cause of deaths these days (most deadly illneses like cancer are aging related). Once that hurdle is overcome, and it might well be in our lifetime, society has to change dramatically and with that our idea of "retirement".

I think it's definitely on topic. One of the main reasons to NOT rely on CPP (pension plan) in Canada is that it might be non-existent by the time we're ready to use it. People are living longer, retiring earlier, and there's a lot more people in the pool that pay into the fund since its inception, meaning there's less to go around.
 
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I think it's definitely on topic. One of the main reasons to NOT rely on CPP (pension plan) in Canada is that it might be non-existent by the time we're ready to use it. People are living longer, retiring earlier, and there's a lot more people in the pool that pay into the fund since its inception, meaning there's less to go around.

Pretty much the logicical end of every socialist plan. Eventually the number of users exceed the number that input. Magic doesnt work when someone has to pay the bill.
Examples range from Canada, USS, Greece, France, Italy etc.
Socialism is great till you run out of other peoples money.

The best case is to not rely solely on any social platform. Do your own work now so you are not at the whim of the next generation of politicians making cuts.
 
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Nah, we need to get rid of the monetary system :)

But that's another story and won't help me retire early!
 
Well, let's not talk about socialism and UBI here though, that's probably better placed in a different topic.
 
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I have not read the responses, but if someone hasn't already suggested it, the best thing you or anyone can do to learn about sensible, low-cost investing is to visit this site: www.bogleheads.org. You can dig into their wikis in whatever detail you want, but virtually every question you can think of, and definitely every beginner question, will be answered for you at that site. It is the RPGwatch of investing IMHO ... seriously.
 
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Over here, employers get deals on mutual funds, and usually have a special retirement fund set up for employees. Often they will match a certain amount that the employee will put away for retirement. Mine for instance, matches up to 4%. So if I put away 4% of my paycheck into a bunch of selected stocks and bonds (that i get to select from their plans), then my employer will double that amount automatically.

There's also a government supplied pension plan or social security (which is probably similar to the folkepension you have) but it's very small and not worth much (unless you work in a gov. related field, then it's much better). The one offered to you is probably much better then what we have here.

I wouldn't have been able to explain better I think.
 
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I decided to make my initial investment paying out my brothers credit card loan. He's going to save a lot of money - and we agreed to split the difference.

A lot more gain than paying my car loan.

Before you talk about money and family: that's not how our family works ;)
 
I decided to make my initial investment paying out my brothers credit card loan. He's going to save a lot of money - and we agreed to split the difference.

A lot more gain than paying my car loan.

Before you talk about money and family: that's not how our family works ;)

Well, you know... you should be careful when giving money to family members.
Sometimes it can hurt more than it originally did when it was an individuals' debt...

... Other family stuff about money...

Be cautious!
 
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