Invest Young Retire Young

Invest Young Retire Young

Young investors have a huge advantage that will allow them to secure their financial future without much effort. There are basic lessons that will help secure your future and allow you to have more fun now.

Social Security and pensions probably won’t be around when your teenager reaches retirement age. In the last ten years we’ve experienced a large reduction in pension plans offered to employees. Employers are replacing pension plans with contributory retirement programs. Unfortunately, according to a report of the National Association of State Boards of Education, “most workers with access to these contributory programs are not participating sufficiently to allow them to retire in their sixties without suffering a great decrease in their standard of living.”

This may mean that everyone under age 30 will need to self-fund their own retirement. In order to be financially prepared, it is important they start investing young and avoid financial pitfalls that plague many of their peers. This requires they learn the basic financial education skills so they are financially prepared.

To be financially prepared for retirements today’s youth will need to have over a million dollars to be fully financially prepared for a self-funded retirement. After calculating the long-term inflation rate, a young adult today will need over a million dollars in order to retire on an annual income of around $35,000 (today’s dollars, adjusted for inflation and salary increases). This is assuming that they live to be ninety years old. However, with the improvements in medicine, many experts feel we will live beyond that mark, so just planning to live to 90 may not be enough. And $35,000 annual income per year is not a lot of money to enjoy the golden years.

What’s the answer? One answer may be a simple investment of $100 per month starting at age 18. If that investment earns a return similar to the S