This year I would like to share with you my resolution that will not only set me up for wealth this year, but for years and years ahead. My plan? 1. To take my retirement savings account off autopilot and 2. Increase my automatic contribution from $100 a month to $500.
I’ve spent a lot of effort of the past five years focused on my other savings goals; buying a home and building up my safety net ( all things I’m very proud of) BUT, I let my retirement account sit on the back burner.
The truth is, the more I’ve learned over the past few years about money, and investing the more excited I got about growing my future wealth, but I felt paralyzed with so many options, not knowing where to start. When I told this to the girls at our first money group meeting this year, their advice was simple; just break it down into weekly actions, don’t worry about making perfect decisions. Talk about an œah ha moment! As a wise mentor once told us when we started the Smart Cookies œ Perfection is the Enemy of Progress, in other words “ just DO something and stop worrying about making perfect decisions.
This is what I did last week:
1.Determined how much I need in my save each month to reach my retirement goals and
2. Upped my automatic contributions.
There are a lot of retirement calculators available on line, my favorite can be found at http://www.bankrate.com/calculators/retirement/retirement-calculator.aspx. My magic number to retire comfortably at 65 is just over 1 million.
Which means if I can automatically save $500 a month now I will have 1,173,238.11 at age 65.
Did I have $500 extra just laying around? Not quite. So in order to fill in the gap, I had to find the hidden money in my spending plan to make this goal a reality.
-
Vow to only get my hair done at hair stylist schools “ they are amazing! $150 saved /mo
-
Promise to eat out only once a week – $100/mo
-
Do yoga only once a week and instead go for runs with friends outside instead – $160
So I called my representative at my financial institution and had them up my automatic contribution which means the money comes out of my checking account each month and I don’t have to lift a finger!
Next week, I tackle a new challenge; to diversify the current investments in my retirement account by researching some alternative investments that I may have never considered for my retirement account. Stay tuned, this journey won’t be perfect, but I hope we can all learn from it!
{ 0 comments… add one now }