dhzizns

Better than nothing?

I still remember my grade 10 business teacher (mandatory class) urging us to start contributing to our retirement and showing us the graphs of how impactful it would be to start early?

“ when there isn't quite enough money”

But is it obvious there isn't enough money? My in-laws, immigrants with almost no skills and mext to zero English, work at Walmart. Their income sucks (<40k combined [1]), and they have zero financial skills (they grew up in communism).

The one thing they know, however, is that my wife is very sharp. therefore, they have given her full access to their all their accounts.

Result?

They’re contributing to a 401k despite always blowing money on flashy iPhones (they’re fairly irresponsible).

They also bought a modest house (ill admit we did lend them the money for a 10% down, which they've paid back) since rent had become more expensive than a mortgage.

They’ve been in the US for just five years and, with very little material help from us, have a reasonable shot at retirement income [2].

The big difference with many others is that my wife took a chunk of their financial autonomy with automatic withdrawals so they wont blow too much money (lottery tickets, booze, fancier iPhones, etc)

[1] Note, they don't have to take care of anyone but themselves with <40k

[2] retirement means selling the house and coming to live with us as soon as either of them can no longer work.

“ there's no scientific basis”

Theres no scientific basis for anything until a proper study is done. Doesn't mean it isn't true. And consider that estimates are as high as 50% of scientific papers’ results are false (especially in bio).

N.B.1: I'm a scientist in a government lab

N.B. 2: I’m not impugning science, just fellow scientists.

Im in my late 30s and I have never had the flu. Ive had multiple terrible colds, but no flu.

The flus not hard to avoid, and might have gone extinct with the lockdowns

EDIT: i dont take the flu vaccine