If you’re a procrastinator like me, you never thought much
about retirement or how much money you’ll have to have saved up in order to
survive after you leave the work force. Or maybe many of you have already
steeled yourself to the prospect of working until you die, which is sadly the
state of affairs for many people (let’s all hope Walmart never goes out of
business, we’ll all need jobs as greeters).
Now that I find myself in my 40s, albeit early 40s, I find
that I think about retirement more and more often. Just as I search the net for
articles on healthy eating and saving money, I find that I also read a lot
about the best ways to save for retirement. Getting the most bang for you buck
is always a plus.
I think the best advice to start with is……start now! Even if
it’s a small amount per paycheck, put into a money market account that you don’t
touch, it’s something. You can even set it up so that a certain amount of money
comes out of your paycheck and is directly deposited into a separate account. Once
you get yourself into the habit of doing it, you can increase the amount and
decide where to invest it so that you can earn more than just interest. It’s
important to start small and work your way up, things are much less painful
that way.
If your employer has a 401k plan, you’re crazy not to be a
part of it. Especially if your employer matches any part of your contribution. I
always tell my clients (yes, even people facing bankruptcy can save for their
retirement) to put in as much as their employer will match, even if the match
is only 25 cents on the dollar. It’s FREE MONEY people! If you can afford to
put in more, than do it, but at least contribute enough to maximize the
employer match.
If your employer doesn’t have a 401k, start your own Roth
IRA. I’m a firm believer that it’s easier to do something if it doesn’t seem
like you’re doing it. I’m also a big fan of the win-win philosophy. For
example, it’s easier to eat healthy if the food tastes great. With that in
mind, try and come up with ways to put money into an IRA that makes it seem
like you’re not doing anything. One way would be to take that tax refund every
year and dump it all into the account. You may have a little bit of withdrawal
if you’re the kind of person who plans to spend your refund on something else,
like a vacation, but after that first year I bet you can do it without even
noticing.
However you plan to contribute to a retirement account, the
best advice is to just do it. And since I am a bankruptcy attorney, I will
bring this back around to an issue I see with a lot of my clients: they can’t
possible start an IRA because they’re in so much debt and are paying too many
minimum payments to credit cards that they charged up with they were out of
work. If this is the case, you may want to consult a bankruptcy attorney. It
may be possible to get rid of your credit card debt in order to allow yourself
a little disposable income to plan for your retirement.
Submitted by:
Bankruptcy Attorney
No comments:
Post a Comment