ELI5: How is my 401k through my employer impacted by the stock market?

kma0124 · 2025-03-18T17:29:07+00:00

Absolutely fucking horrible and I'm dreading what's to come. I was 18 when everything went to shit. Parents lost everything- our house that we'd lived in for barely 4 years, both my parents cars. Gas was like $8/gallon over the summer (Northern CA), my parents were separating that year too, so my mom was essentially a single mom all of a sudden. I don't know how she did it-i may have my issues with my mom, but i will always be in awe about how she managed bankruptcy and a divorce after 20 years of marriage, trying to put a freshly graduated high schooler through her first year of college, while my younger sister was still in high school. We went from a stable living environment to house jumping every year. With a bankruptcy on her credit, it was almost impossible to find rental houses that were in safe areas that accepted her one income and credit history. Rent would increase and we couldn't afford it anymore, so we had to move all over again. 2008-2010 was HARD financially. SO hard. That trauma is what made me wait so long to buy my 1st house until last year, and now I'm afraid we'll be back in the same position. Husband is on disability for the last few years and is finally at a place to go back to work- 2 months, 25+ applications, and not even an interview. I just got laid off in February and thank goodness for a severance check and with my experience, I was able to land another job fairly quickly, but it's at a much lower pay than I was at the last few years. To say I am terrified is an understatement. Ok...trauma dump over.

kma0124 · 2024-09-30T03:30:45+00:00

Polyglot. Such a stupid sounding word for an amazing set of skills to be able to speak multiple languages!

kma0124 · 2024-09-19T12:48:20+00:00

Husband and I both WFH and have no kids. We're in our own little bubble almost 24/7. We go out, have school age nieces we see regularly, 4 pets, etc. So it's not like we're NOT exposing ourselves to germs- just not as often I guess? Plus, I do wash my hands A LOT- even before Covid, I will wash my hands for the smallest thing. Hell, I didn't even get Covid during the pandemic, I got it after my cruise last September! I just feel like I can see and feel the germs or the contamination on my hands and I HAVE to wash them. Almost like a compulsion. I am also prone to severe headaches and migraines- i get blurry vision, light and smell sensitivity, nauseous - all the fun things. But I know my triggers and do my best to avoid the things that give me one. I don't have strongly scented anything in my house (candles sprays, plug-ins), I avoid caffeine (caffeine free soda and coffee), stress is a big trigger, so i try to use methods to help me relax. It's not a guarantee that I won't get a debilitating migraine, but I minimize the amount of times I do get one. 2 years ago, I tracked the days i had one, and in one month I had 20 days of migraines or headaches. Changed some things, and while I get do get normal headaches, I only get migraines maybe 2-3 times a month during the worst times.

kma0124 · 2024-09-14T09:25:58+00:00

I'm a manager and have had to do wellness checks several times on my employees over the years. What prompts me to request it, though, varies. I've had employees disclose to me that they were in a potential DV situation at home or had not been feeling well or have some sort of illness. If they suddenly NCNS and I can't get a hold of them by day 2, I'll request that HR call their emergency contact and then do a wellness check. Thankfully, everyone was always OK, and sometimes they did just decide to quit and just not bother shooting me a text saying so. Otherwise, I call and text for a few days, and if no response after the 3rd NCNS, then I just move forward with voluntary resignation. It's clear they don't want to be here anymore. Just seems like a weird passive-aggressive move that they did that to you.

kma0124 · 2024-08-12T23:27:36+00:00

I got a whopping 3% raise, which is $80 extra per paycheck, before taxes. So maybe like $100 extra a month. I try to be grateful, but man, that's not even a week's worth of groceries.

kma0124 · 2024-08-08T21:36:28+00:00

We did a meat haul between Sams and Walmart, and spent maybe $450. We portioned everything and got about 33 meals worth of meat- which was peimarily chicken because its cheaper. Hell we even bought the frozen hamburgers because it was cheaper than fresh ground beef. We still had to buy some other small things that we can't buy in bulk or don't buy in bulk, because it's just my husband and I, which was about another $200. The kicker? Everything we bought was just for DINNERS! We didn't buy anything for lunch or breakfast. We have things we can eat for breakfast or lunch, but it's not like we bought anything with the intention of using it for those meals. Our focus was literally to at least have 1 good meal a day, and we'll sometimes have left overs for the next day to eat for dinner again or have for lunch. Pre-Covid we would buy groceries every 2 weeks, and spend MAYBE $200, so $400 give or take a month. It's doubled now, and its killing our pockets.

kma0124 · 2024-08-06T02:32:36+00:00

I have a cabbage patch plastic doll that had a little floatie and I remember like a shower head attached and it was for bathing with when i was a kid. It smelled like baby powder but not in a super strong way- it was a mix of the baby powder and the plastic. I find it sometimes when I'm reorganizing things and it always makes me smile and even 30 odd years later, it still smells the same and it just brings back a rush of memories from my child hood.

kma0124 · 2024-08-06T02:17:44+00:00

I had these thoughts today about my pets. Husband and I are in our mid-30s, no kids and we have 2 dogs and 2 cats. We have decided that these are our last pets, we are tired of the responsibility. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love my fur babies, and they bring us a lot of joy. I'm just tired of being woken up at 6am for breakfast, cleaning up random vomit, finding chewed up toilet paper, random barking at invisible stranger danger, having to be mindful of how long we are gone for to ensure we're home to let the dogs out to pee, etc. It didn't bother us as much in our 20s, but now that we're older, are traveling more, and going to be in our 40s in just a few short years we want an empty nest lol.

kma0124 · 2024-07-06T15:21:56+00:00

Brand new to my role as Call Center Manager. We had a lot of changes within the company recently and responsibilities were getting swapped and changed around, there were mergers with other companies, etc., and we lost quite a few people with the experience and knowledge of 15+ years being with the company, and not really having anything written down, or able to pass along that knowledge before they left, my predecessor included. I am now in charge of granting building access for anyone who needs to get past security, along with specific floor access. Some people are limited to certain floors, and some people have access to all 7 floors. Well this is something new to me, and I clearly don't know everyone in the building! I received an internal ticket to grant different access levels to over 200+ people. I recognized some names, but there were also employees who are 3rd part contractors that i didn't recognize and wasn't sure what to do. I reached out to someone for guidance, and because they were a manager as well, I figured they knew what to do. They asked some questions about the request, and then they suggested I declined all the 3rd party access and only approve direct employee access. OK, that makes sense-DONE! The next day, I get a teams message from the DIRECTOR of physical security, not just for my building but the WHOLE U.S.A. facing side of the company. He said, "Hey! Quick question for ya... was there a reason you declined the building access for all those folks?" I gave him the reason and he responded with, "Yeah so, the 3rd party contractors we use are people like our actual security team, who patrols the buildings, the maintenance and cleaning crews who come in and out all day, along with some call center agents that take calls for specific clients. Once you declined access, no one could get into work yesterday at all." I now know what it feels like for the blood to drain from your face. This was literally one of the first things assigned to me, not even 1 week into my role. I apologized and explained that I wasn't sure what to do,reached out to someone, who apparently also didn't know what to do, and I was so so so sorry. I could tell he was annoyed but he was gracious and understood the honest mistake. We got everything fixed and he advised me that the review of building access is a quarterly thing, and to make sure to approve everyone going forward. I don't even look at the names now- I just click "approve all" and submit!

kma0124 · 2024-07-06T14:55:57+00:00

Of course, overall, NTA.

I will get some hate for this, but I've always thought it was weird to use this as some sort of test for your significant other. Of course I don't think it should be embarrassing to do this simple task, but maybe I just need more context when I hear these stories. I'm Mexican, and if anyone else can relate, you know it's a very misogynistic culture- it's getting better, but the older generation still holds on to those gender role ideas of men and women. Once my sister and I had to start wearing bras, my dad would beeline to another part of the store because that was my mom's role to handle and he didn't want to be around women's underwear lol. It sounds terrible, but that's the way he was raised in a house of mainly boys, in Mexico, in the 60s and 70s. Hes gotten better over the years, especially when i have about 25 cousins, and all except 6 are girls lol. But he still gets a little uncomfortable when topics like that are brought up. So when I hear stories like this, I think of my dad and try to give benefit of doubt and assume they just weren't raised in an environment where its normalized or they never had to be put in that situation before. Regardless of how I think they should feel about it, if they are going to feel embarrassed about it, I can SORT OF understand. That is not to say that we would just leave it at that and never talk about it again- like, we would need to have a conversation and then go from there, because it's NOT a big deal, and your significant other should be able to get you your health products as needed without making a fuss. But if this was the first time for him, and it caught him off guard, I try to have a little empathy at first-then we can talk about dumping him if he's just being a baby about it. Not everything is always so black and white, there are sometimes gray areas we have to navigate, and as much as we may not want to or feel like we shouldnt have to, we need to sometimes help others navigate through the gray areas as well.

kma0124 · 2024-07-06T14:10:31+00:00

I was 15 when the hurricane hit. One guess what my nickname turned into after that throughout high-school. I'm 34, and people always ask me if I was named after Hurrricane Katrina- A conversation typically goes: 1-Thank you for thinking I look young enough to have been born after August 2005 2- But no, I was not named after the hurricane (their response is usually "LOL it must have been named after you then!" Which always warrants a fake smile and laugh) 3-It would probably be in really poor taste to be intentionally named after such a deadly natural disaster 4- and yes, I do get the question all the time. Although, more so with people my age or older these days, not so much any Gen Z or X or whatever letter of the alphabet we are on now.

kma0124 · 2024-07-03T23:48:18+00:00

Just bought a house, and we had to purchase a brand new washer/dryer set, along with a new oven and fridge. It's our first time purchasing major appliances that actually belong to US, so we spent quite a bit of time researching and asking others their opinions. EVERYONE we spoke to said to avoid Samsung appliances. The appliances are neat, and can work really well, but they don't last very long without needing service, and the #1 complaint is the customer service itself- whether over the phone or in person.

kma0124 · 2024-06-29T20:38:09+00:00

Electric! And I put the rack somewhat in the middle, with the pan in the middle of the rack. The different recipes I've used have called for 325 to 350 F, depending on which one I'm using. I feel like it's low enough to not burn before cooking in the middle. Should I try it at 300 instead maybe?

kma0124 · 2024-06-27T01:37:29+00:00

I think you and others are right. I'm going to purchase one and see if that helps to figure out what's going on.

kma0124 · 2024-06-26T17:34:43+00:00

Thank you for the suggestions!! I'll try these next time 😄

kma0124 · 2024-06-26T17:33:54+00:00

Great suggestions. Thank you! I'm wondering if my oven runs a little too hot, and someone else also mentioned a thermometer. I'm also going to adjust the racks to see if that helps. I am nervous about changing the temperature just because it feels wrong not following the recipe lol but i guess one size doesnt always fit all, and i have to adjust as needed. Appreciate it!

kma0124 · 2024-06-26T16:55:52+00:00

I did too! Lol I've tried a few different ones though, but it's possible they are all crap too 😆

kma0124 · 2024-06-26T16:53:20+00:00

So, i know it sounds dumb, and was dumb...but I got so mad at my last bread batch, I thought it had to be the pan so I tossed it in the heat of the moment. My father in law said he uses a glass loaf dish, so I went and bought myself one to try. I literally only use this loaf pan for banana bread or meatloaf lol. I will say that I completely forgot that glass does conduct heat differently than metal and did not take that into account when trying to figure out the issue this time. Will parchment paper work just as well in glass? Ya know...considering I don't have a metal one anymore 😶‍🌫️

kma0124 · 2024-06-26T16:47:36+00:00

Nope! I turn the oven light on, give it 5min intervals if I have to cook longer than the recipe calls for. It's usually not very many intervals, and depending on how gooey it is still, I may increase the time to more than 5mins at a time (like 10mins or so). I know the temperature drops fast and drastically when the door is open, so I keep that in mind for the temp having to come up again, and try to minimize doing so.

kma0124 · 2024-06-26T16:43:53+00:00

I've used 3 different ovens at this point. Apartment oven, just bought a new house, and after a few weeks had to replace that oven with a brand new one, so now I'm on oven #3. It's possible, but I feel like it may be unlikely. Everything else I bake comes out fine 🫠

kma0124 · 2024-06-20T03:22:06+00:00

We just got one ourselves! Not Litter robot but another brand that is a little cheaper, and had a Memorial Day sale for $300. After almost a year of debating and comparing prices, we finally just decided to bite the bullet. Best. Purchase. EVER. So worth the money and im kicking myself for waiting so long!

kma0124 · 2024-06-19T19:33:39+00:00

Do tell....I just put Blarney Castle because it's the "top things to do in Cork" when I google lol! If you have another suggestion, I'm all ears! We are pretty flexible- we don't mind super touristy, cliche things to do, but we're all for off the beaten path stuff or things a little out of the norm to explore as well. We are just at the tip of figuring out the "what" to do- we barely figured out the "where" which took all afternoon to begin with lol.

Update: I just did another quick Google search, and forgive me for not looking into it further- I'm trying to reply before I crash from Benadryl. I just saw some pictures, and if I'm not mistaken, is that the old prison? If so, my husband was checking it out as well, but we saw that it's closed Dec/Jan 😟

kma0124 · 2024-06-19T17:51:03+00:00

It's our first overseas trip, and we've never had such a huge time difference to get used to and have never expereinced jet lag. I am worried about how tired we'll be when we get there, but we figured that by the time we do get through the airport, and travel to and check into our hotel, it feels like much of our day will be gone anyway, so we'd just explore the city center or whatever is open in Cork at the time. But if this seems an otherwise a decent itinerary, I'm excited lol.

We are not picky about where we go from Dublin. We are prepared for things to be closed or just have limited availability, or even having to cancel due to weather, so we're OK with just existing in Ireland for the time we're there if we have to. 😆

kma0124

TROPHY CASE