Build Your Retirement Saving Plan Today
Build Your Retirement Saving Plan Today
Some important statistics released by the Government indicate that most Americans are very concerned about their financial future, particularly their ability to be financially secure into retirement. Almost 80% of those between the ages of 30 and 54, believe that they won’t have enough money put away for retirement.
Contributing to this uncertainty, 2/3rds of the country’s young people that were surveyed in the 1970’s said that they felt certain that Social Security was going to be there when they retired and that it would be adequate to support them. Conversely, of those surveyed in the 1980’s, 2/3rds of them were not confident that Social Security could be counted on for support in retirement. They felt that, if Social Security were still functioning by the time they retired, it would not be able to pay amounts adequate to support a reasonable standard of living.
If all of these surveys are true, and we believe they are, why aren’t people doing more to save for retirement? Well, it is not as easy as it would seem. With all of the economic pressures on a family these days, it is very difficult to make ends meet on a day-to-day basis, much less have anything left for a retirement saving plan.
For most of us, if we could just save all of the money that we spend on credit card interest, we would have more than enough to fund a wonderful retirement lifestyle. It would seem that our economic system works against those that are trying to get ahead. Over the course of my career, I know that I have spent more than $500,000 in mortgage, credit card, and new car interest. It seems that we have become a society that places a much higher value on having nice things right now rather than saving for the future as our parent’s generation was more prone to do.
What can we do about it? It should be obvious to us that, if we don’t take some sort of action now, we will be faced with dire consequences later on in life. There is no ‘Fairy Godmother’ who is likely to drop down out of nowhere and make our financial future whole. We also cannot count on winning the lottery to finance our future, either. The only reasonable approach, then, is to take the issue into our own hands, pay attention to the problem, and work hard to reverse the situation in our own financial lives.
One way to achieve some sort of retirement savings is to find a source of supplemental income that we can dedicate to our retirement savings fund. Perhaps there is an area of our life or experience that we can exploit for some extra cash. Maybe you could write a book on a subject of your interest and publish it on the internet. If you research enough, you can find many potential sources of extra income that you can exploit in addition to your working career.
Why not involve your spouse and work with him or her to find a way to generate some extra cash so that both of you can have a better future when you retire? Perhaps, between the two of you, you can find some extra time to devote to this important cause. The earlier in life that you are able to accomplish this, the more time you have. Time is your friend! The power of compounding returns will add dramatically to anything you can save and the tax deferrals offered by some of the IRA programs will contribute greatly to making your plan work even better. But, nothing will happen unless you take the first step.
Start now to research an income producing project for your family’s future. Take action today! It does not have to be a perfect plan. Imperfect action is far better than perfect inaction.
Resources: Don Seibert is a retired business executive who, as an Expert Author, writes timely articles on many issues concerning sources of retirement income. Having retired three times, he now is the host of http://www.RetireToEasyStreet.com Visit the site for a complete discussion of Retirement Income Options