If you're young and full of life chances are you haven't given much thought to your retirement. I mean, why would you, it's years away, and there are so many other financial hurdles to jump over at this stage. How will I pay off my mortgage? Should I be investing my hard earned cash? No matter your age, if you're 20 something or 50 something, it's never too soon to start giving having some serious thought to your golden years and retirement. What's more is that the sooner your starting paying attention to it, and making sure your retirement is secured, the better prepared you'll be.
Start saving for your retirement today. Don't push it off one more moment. Every penny that you can put away today, you'll be grateful for when you're managing to maintain the same standard of living that you're used to, without having to hold down a job. If you're not a "saver" type of person, make it easy for yourself and automate your savings. Before you have a chance to look into your bank account and spend, make sure that money is secured somewhere in a good retirement fund.
It's one thing to start saving, and it's a big step, but if you keep the end goal in mind, it becomes a lot easier, and you'll be a lot more motivated. It's important though, that once you start saving, you let your nest egg grow. In simple terms this means "Don't touch your savings"! It will be very enticing when you see your money growing, and your mind will start racing, thinking of the many things you can do with that bundle of cash. But stay focused and don't touch it! The last thing you want to do is blow your whole retirement and have to start again!
When you're giving thought to how much you should be saving monthly for your retirement, you may want to start off by assessing and estimating how much money you'll need to live comfortable when you retire. This is the part when you can be extravagant! Even if you overestimate how much you'll need, and hit your retirement years with some extra dough to spend, there is no downside to it! On the flip side, if you underestimate, you may find you'll be living your golden years having to hold down a job, or at a standard of living that you are not used to.
When you're saving for your retirement and living your life now, at the same it's essential to keep an eye on your spending and stick to a budget. Buy what you need, pay off the day to day expenses, and even spoil yourself once a while with a dinner out with some friends. But make sure that it fits into your monthly budget, and that you don't skimp on your savings in order to live an extravagant lifestyle now. If you have some cash left at the end of your budget, save it!
