I'm not going to lie, the idea of the 401K kinda scares me now. We were always told to keep it safe, invest in index fund, let compound interests do its thing w

I'm not going to lie, the idea of the 401K kinda scares me now. We were always told to keep it safe, invest in index fund, let compound interests do its thing with your pretax money. But during the financial crisis, most "commoners" took a heavy hit that took a very long time to recover and it felt like we were the last on the priority list to recover and the WSB saga really shows how unfair it is. But my big question is what is the alternative? Real estate?