I’ve realized I’m a very atypical person: talking to coworkers in my age range today I realized they have a better financial situation than mine: they are married, some with children, own their own condos, houses, or are paying a mortgage, but can still live a normal life, own a car, some even have the luxury of not having to work 40 hours a week, but 32 because they don’t need to work more, house already paid, family and life objectives achieved.
Me: I’m 43, I don’t own but rent, meaning I pay for something I’m never going to own. The last 2 years I’ve been saving like crazy because I’m afraid of not having enough money for retirement, and because in my past I did so much stupid shit, meaning I wasted so many years not doing anything of use.
I have around 100K in the bank, I know I should invest but I’m also scared of losing that money and I don’t know if I should use that money as a down payment for a house.
My father owns 3 houses and I envy him. I’ve been thinking about asking him to sell one of the houses and give me the proceeds so I can buy my own place because some of my coworkers did that and could finance their own home. When my father went to study to another state my grandfather bought him a house there so he wouldn’t have to rent. When he moved back to home state he sold and invested the money to buy a new house there. He had way easier than me. It’s not fair. I feel… unloved?
I guess this makes me an entitled ass but I feel so… lost?
To summarize, I feel like a loser because I’m old, I’m behind most of my coworkers my age, I’m a very individualistic person but this means I’m going to die alone, but sometimes I feel alone and scared of being old and alone. I don’t own anything of value to my name, it’s like I’m an old teenager.
If you have 100k saved in liquid cash, you definitely need to be investing that in broad scale index funds. Keeping it liquid means inflation is going to be eating away at your money over time, which is really not good. The whole market is pretty out of balance due to AI, but it’s better to get in now rather than trying to wait and see. You have time to recover from market crashes, just don’t panic sell if the market crashes.
If financial stuff isn’t your thing, you can also save for retirement in prefabbed vehicles called Target-Date Funds. These are kinda annoying as they have a decent amount of fees, but you basically set a retirement goal date, and they will automatically rebalance more and more conservatively over time. However, you are at a bit of a disadvantage if you start at 43. I’d recommend saving aggressively if you can afford to.
Renting vs buying is always a thing, and it highly depends where you live. Having money for a down payment is good, but I’d consider what 100k invested right now would do for you until you are 80 vs what a house would do for you instead. 40 years of interest could be better than a significant debt load, even with several market crashes.
Fwiw, if you don’t have a spouse or kids, I don’t really see much value in a house. Rent a cheap one bed and laugh all the way to the bank when a water pipe breaks and you don’t have to cover 75k in water damage.