Poof, it's Gone

If you're wondering where all your money has gone in all of this financial mess that the economy now is, an AP article, All that money you've lost - where did it go?, wants you to know that it was never really there in the first place. Economists say that all these stocks are just a 'best guess' on their actual value, or, put another way, just what people trading today are willing to pay for it. For instance, if you have a home assessed this week, and it comes back valued at $350,000, but next week's assessment comes back at $300,000, you just lost $50,000 in a poof. The real bitch of the whole deal is that if you had a decent retirement account set up in a 401k, it is also gone. Though no one else has this suddenly fictional money, what is not taken into consideration is the hefty chunk of each paycheck that went into that retirement savings account. So, in essence, you've been working your life away for a lot less than you thought, and now have no way to finance your golden years. Harumph. Don't feel bad: I already lost the majority of my retirement savings when the stock market took a dive after 9/11. There wasn't anything left to lose. I already planned to work until my dying day anyway.