For years my friend, Shana, and I have been planning, “Pam and Shana’s Big Book Of Things We Plan to do When We Retire.” Although we have yet to get it into book form, anytime we do something that vaguely annoys our kids they ask, “Are you putting this in your book?” The answer is usually, “Yes.” So far we have included things like talk loudly in public about embarrassing moments from our children’s past, only wear curlers and house dresses when we go out with our children, invite ourselves to dinner at our children’s house and complain we don’t like what they cooked and join a bowling league. My kids will also tell you of my plans to move to Costa Rica and raise baby jaguars.
I want my children to be able to do the same things so I decided it is never to early to start talking about retirement options. Last week my daughter was opening her mail and found an envelope addressed to her fiance, who recently turned twenty. “What’s this?” she queried, and then pulled out the contents, “Steps for setting up a 401K. I don’t think we need this!” “Wait!” I said, sensing a teaching moment, “You are never too young to start preparing for retirement! You father and I were preparing for our retirement at that age!”
According to the US Department of Labor, the average American spends 20 years in retirement. Here’s three tips to help make you retirement comfortable.
1. Start saving early and keep saving. It’s difficult to save money, especially when you have sick children or hefty bills. The best way we have found is to have a percentage automatically removed from Bryan’s paycheck and deposited in our 401k account. That way we never see the money.
2. Determine how much you will need for retirement to live comfortably. You will probably need at least 70% of your current income for each year of retirement. Be sure to calculate the cost so you can save accordingly. If you need help with planning, be sure to check out this Plan for Living Workbook video from Genworth.
3. Don’t touch your retirement savings! Once they have been invested, saved or deposited, leave them alone and let them continue to grow.
What are your best retirement planning tips?
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Great tips. I would also include stay away from the credit card trap. We are in our early 40’s and are a couple of years from being completely debt free, including a house payment. After my kids get out of college I plan on saving like crazy. I ant to retire at an early age.
These are great tips! Especially the starting early! You don’t want to find out half way through your life that you can’t retire as soon as you wanted because You didn’t start saving early enough.
Great tips! I think the hardest for me would be to start saving and keep saving and not touch it at all. There is always something that comes up that needs me to go into my savings. Some big emergency.
I always wanted to own an aviary. I love birds and they are relaxing
You’re right… its never too early. I need to get off my tush and find extra funds for some retirement… I expect by the time I am at retiring age, Social Security will be all dried up even though its my money they are using! ugh!
Spot on information! Having a great retirement is possible, it just takes some planning 🙂
Im working on my own retirement next year-better late then never-but it’s hard to decide the right investments.
Great tips!! Retirement is so important for family planning. Save while you can!
I have heard great things about this – good to know for the future.
Great tips. Planning for retirement is so vitally important.
It is important to think about and plan for retirement as early as possible because if we are blessed, we will all retire someday.
Several years ago I invested in our 401K at work. They have a program where you start at 1%, they match it and every year it increases by 1% until you reach the maximum that they match. This was the best thing I ever did. It was painless and required no thought….Do I increase my investment this year? Yup, automatically!
I have to start thinking about this.
Not touching is key! I have friends who have borrowed from and also completely drained their retirement accounts, and I just don’t get it. We have to be our own best friend – no one else is going to do it! I just wish I had contributed more when I was younger.
That is good information to know. My company currently doesn’t even have a 401K plan so I’m planning on changing that soon 😛
I figured I would work until the day I died.. but, comfortable retirement sounds good, too 🙂
Great tips, thanks for sharing. I think a lot of people do touch their savings.
#2 is the hard part.
Fantastic idea on the book>We work every day on the future but it can be a hard road some days.
I love the thought of having a retirement book! I wish I would have given more thought to retirement when I was young. I try to teach my young working daughter that.
These are great tips! My husband and I are both in our mid- to late-30s and have only recently gotten serious about retirement savings.
This is very important! I have a little nest egg growing that I hope with be enough (god willing) when I retire!
I think many people probably underestimate their retirement needs. I hope to not make that mistake.
Great tips.. I soo have to think about retirement, its still years out, BUT the sooner I save the comfortable I will be … Always love your posts and advice.. thanks for sharing
These are great tips. I know we need to save more, but it is just so hard right now.
Thank you for this. I don’t plan or save nearly as much as I should. I need a sticky note reminder, every day! Your book sounds great too – I look forward to reading it, so keep us posted 😉
I do not want to think about the word retirement right now. We are planning for ours but my mother just announced that she wants to retire next year and is only able to do it if she lives with us – uh no. Why did she not plan better.
Thanks for reminding me this! We haven’t thought about it much, but really should do it now!
I practiced the three you mentioned and just a whole lot of savings. I was able to retire at 55 and I am loving it.
Sometimes I feel like retirement is so far away but, you are right, it is important to have a plan in place for when that time finally arrives.
This is so important to think about! Saving needs to be started as early as possible.
Fantastic tips, it’s a little different over here I think on how it works as we have government funded pensions as well though they will only pay out when you reach a certain age – I think they are changing it to 70 soon so of course it is much better to have a private pension as well but it’s so confusing on the best type to have and how much to save. x
Couldn’t agree with you more! You never know what the future will bring. Before you know it you will have the retirement of your life
I wish there was a fun app to do retirement planning, sounds as fun as doing your taxes but yes it must be done. Imagine there was a game where you can deposit into your retirement account and it would tell you how much you needed to get to Costa Rica to raise baby jaguars? Gamification makes boring tasks fun, a girl can dream can’t she?
These are great and useful tips! Start saving early is so important!
I love that you are teaching your daughter to start saving now. You are right that most people are retired for 20 years, so it’s important to save and make those 20 years enjoyable!
Planning is key to a happy retirement. My inlaws should have been enjoying their right now, but didn’t plan well enough. We are learning from their mistakes and are making sure we are building up our nest egg so we can enjoy the golden years.
This post really hit home with me. I’m only 25, so I tend to avoid thinking about retirement, but you are so right that people in their twenties should absolutely be planning for the future. Thanks for the reminder that I need to get on it! 😉
It is always best to plan ahead as you have suggested as retirement gets here before you know it. Love the tips.
I’ve been thinking about this lately and figuring out ways we can bump up our savings. After the holidays it’ll be easier to save. There’s no gaurantees but we’re still young enough (26 and 27) that we can save for quite a while.
I agree with saving a small percentage of you cash. At times it might be hard, but if you do not, then you will not have. I know so many people who keep saying next time I get a raise I will save or when my children get older I will save. It does not work that way. I have been saving since my first paycheck and I have very little to show. You have to save right away no matter how big or small because you just never know what the future will bring.
super tips. it’s never too soon to start!! and we don’t view our 401k money as ours– it’s not even on our radar.
I have been starting to think about this more and more! I have been adding more to my retirement fund through work and investing more.
You’re smart to have the money auto-withdrawn because it’s true that if you don’t see it, you won’t really miss it that much. It’s more and more important with each new generation to get a retirement fund going.
I am a saver and could save almost all of my money. My Hubs loves to spend, but he has a great retirement plan so I just let him do what he wants.
I agree that our #1 tip over here was to start saving early! For our retirement and for our kids’ education! We’re still a couple decades away from retirement, but it’s comforting to know that we’ve already been building our nest egg for almost 2 decades too!
I only wish I had been able to do this I’d be in a lot better shape then I am in now. Most of the jobs I had did nit have these–and I was never quite able to open one when I was full time self employed. Anyone reading this–do it now!!
Great tips….I really do not think people realize the importance of saving early. It makes such a huge difference.
It is so important to leave those retirement savings alone, and not touch them early. I love that you are already talking about it with your kids.
Good advice. Planning is so important!
All great tips. My ex took a huge withdrawal from his 401K before we divorced and I kept telling him that it was a mistake.