Whether you think you are 15 years away, 10 years away, or just around the corner from retirement, having some type of plan to save money for when the time comes is key to ensuring financial security while living out the rest of your life in peace and relaxation. By the time most people retire, they have already dedicated 20+ years to hard work, so now is the time to go play your favorite golf courses, travel, and do the things you could never do while you were stuck in that office Monday through Friday for the past couple of decades. Lets go over a few easy ways that you can start saving up to retire.
401K
Chances are if you have a full time job and have been working for a company for long enough, then you have a 401K set up with them. This is very important to take advantage of if your employer offers you this. A 401K is a plan that basically takes money out of your check each week before it is even taxed and puts it into a retirement fund. Most employers will match the amount you decide to take out each week. So if you’re taking out $50 a week from your paycheck and your employer is matching you $50 that is $100 a week going into your retirement fund. Now think about this, $100 a week essentially turns into $4,800 a year. So if you started your 401K at 30 years old and retire when you’re 60, you already have around $300,000 in your savings from working alone. This isn’t including the money you will be receiving from the company for the money invested in bonds and mutual funds as well.
“This is the start of my wonderful retirement”. Jeanette’s 60th Birthday cake by the-icing-on-the-cake. (Jo), on Flickr. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Make it a Bill
You not only want to retire, but you want to retire at a decent age where you can still fully function and go out and about to enjoy life. In addition to taking money out of your check each week for your 401K, try and take out an additional 10 to 15 percent of your check out and stick the money into a savings bond through www.Saveup.com, or invest it in something worthwhile. Let the money build up for 20 or 30 years and, hopefully by then, you will have also made a good amount of interest off your money and investments.
Lifestyle Habits
By the time you hit your late twenties and early thirties you should already have figured out that you need to have a plan in place to put money aside to retire. Therefore you are going to need to realize that you can’t be going out partying all the time, or going out for expensive meals five days a week. Over a long period of time going out for food and drinks can cost an awful lot of money. Remember next time you go out and spend $8 on a drink that your employer most likely would have matched that costing you to miss out on $16 toward your retirement.
How much money you can really save is up to you. If you can’t take out $50 dollars every week from your paycheck then try and shoot for $40. Every little bit of money helps. Make sure to find out about your company’s 401K opportunities and try to control going out and spending large amount of cash on personal activities. Remember, when it is time to retire, you want to make sure you are financially set to enjoy the rest of your life in peace. It is never too early to start saving!
