Are you financially ready for retirement?
I know we aren’t. But we are working on it.
Why is it important to stash some of those bucks you save by shopping at Aldi or getting a third party cell phone carrier?
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Two words: Compound Interest.
Think about this. A 40% savings in your average grocery bill per year for a family of two is $3000. If you stashed that cash each year in a retirement account with investments that grow 5% per year, there would be $222,250 greenbacks waiting for you in 30 years. If you switched your family to Red Pocket Mobile from a major carrier, saving $60 per month on an average two person cell phone plan and invested those savings too, you would have an additional $53,350 in your retirement account waiting for you. These are two relatively simple decisions in your daily grind, yet the savings over time, when invested early, is a staggering $275,000 dollar, job quitting, vacation-house gift to your future self and family. Note: Your future self will be even less excited to go to work in the morning than your current self, and will be thanking you for the cushion.
Consider that the mean retirement savings for American families on the cusp of retirement is just $17,000.
That’s all. I just gave you a path to $275,000 by switching cell carriers and buying German groceries.
Let me make one last pitch for investing early.
Assume again that you switch to Red Pocket and buy your groceries at Aldi, which saves you $3720 a year, and that you will retire at 65.
If you start investing that $3720/year at age 45, you will have $139,000 when you retire at 65.
If you start investing that $3720/year at age 35, you will have $250,000 when you retire at 65.
If you start investing that $3720/year at age 25, you will have $500,000 when you retire at 65.
That is a half a million bucks, folks.
And all you did was change your grocery shopping location and cell phone carrier.
So wherever you are at in your life journey, the time to start saving is now. We all wish we had started saving earlier (especially after seeing those figures…), but the bottom line is:
Seize the day!
Make those small changes now that have big impact on your future.
Happy saving!!