A person wrote in to Walter Updegrave here, asking “I’ve been saving for retirement for over 10 years and at 34 have $160k saved, but I now have less than I did one year ago. Have I been a fool in my diligence?”

Walter’s response was no.  He says it’s better to have saved the $160k than nothing at all.  And that many people would give their eye teeth to be in your position.  Amen!

But seriously I understand where the guy is coming from.  It’s discouraging. I hoped we’d break the $100k mark this year with our retirement savings, but it hasn’t happened.  We ended 2007 with $67.7k, but we hadn’t made our 2007 Roth IRA contributions.  Thus by April 2008 we had contributed $20k to our retirement accounts = $87.7k.  While by June 2008 because of automatic deduction into DH’s 401k we should have stashed $7750 = $95.5k.  Plus with rest of the year to come we should have been at least with contributions @ $103k to end the year, not counting the 6% company match.

Instead we ended June 2008 at $90k, and I dread looking at July 2008.  DH’s 401k is down 10% and I bet our Roth IRAs are down just as much.   So I feel his pain.  But what else can we do but keep on trudging forward with retirement savings.  It will come back eventually, much like housing. 

All we can do is keep saving and looking positively at the long term. The market will return and we will be okay.  Keep repeating that mantra with me.