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Started early. Thank goodness since all the market crashes really did a number on me. We’ll retire well enough though thank goodness due to always living below our means. When we’re fully retired, it’ll be in a larger home. Most people downsize....we’re not most people. Lol
the beauty of time is that if you hold diversified funds and not individual stocks , over long periods of time these crashes ,recessions ,wars , etc mean little if anything .
if a long term investor lost money it wasn't markets but their own bad investor behavior
I never "saved for retirement". Saving is saving, and I saved whatever I did not need for living in frugal comfort and contentment. When I retired, there it was.
a penny saved may be a penny earned , but it will always stay a penny , or less with taxes and inflation . so it is always good compounding via our investing that takes the little bits of money we do save and grows it in to meaningful numbers .
The idea of having no money or running out of it in retirement is a major cause of keeping a plethora of people wide awake at night. According to a study by the AICPA, it’s recognized as the No. 1 concern among clients of CPA financial planners.
So without any further delay, here are some tried and tested steps that can help you to develop a realistic savings plan for your retirement.
1.Begin Saving Now
2.Try saving at least 15% of the Earnings
3.Take benefit of any 401(k) match
4.Predict your retirement lifestyle
5.Control your spending so that your income remains higher than your lifestyle needs.
6.Social security can offer some monthly income, but it’s best to avoid its dependency for the complete support for your
retirement.
80K in student loans with an 80K income sucks but getting out of it is very doable. But you have to believe it's possible, and you have to really want to.
The key to getting out of debt is to shun the Standard American Lifestyle of more house/apartment than you need, more car than you need, eating out, etc.
You have to treat that debt as an emergency--as if your hair were on fire.
I completely agree with this. I was in almost exactly the same situation in my mid-30s, except replace student loan with credit card debt that was the amount of my annual income. I shunned the Standard American Lifestyle and took on 2 additional part-time jobs and eliminated the debt in 3 years when I thought I would be having the debt burden for the rest of my life.
I know other posters say to not worry about the debt and instead invest, but when you do that you don't have staying power or the knowledge to stay invested through bad times, so you might blow up and everything gets worse.
For the poster with 80K income and 80k student loan debt, shun the standard lifestyle and you can be debt free within 4 years max, then keep on shunning the standard lifestyle and make the equivalent of the debt payments to buy low cost stock index funds and hold for 20+ years (that's all the investment knowledge you need). And if the poster is only in his late 20s, he can be debt free by the time he's in his early-30s, compared to me in my early-30s when I started incurring debt.
I will also mention during my early 30s I also started contributing 15% to my 401K into low cost stock index funds and doing that for the rest of my working life plus paying off my debt in 3 years, were the two best things I ever did.
I never "saved for retirement". Saving is saving, and I saved whatever I did not need for living in frugal comfort and contentment. When I retired, there it was.
That's the model for us. We just worked; sometimes we made a lot of money and sometimes not. So we got the rental properties paid off, invested as best we could and never quit.
As it turned out our retirement date was dictated by Medicare eligibility more than anything else. And I'm not alone. I know several people who would like to retire but won't because that exposes them to possibly huge expenses.
Retired in 2010, and retired seamlessly. Our retirement income is equal to what we had been budgeting for years. Plan your work; work your plan.
I agree, especially with your last point. I carry student loan debt that I pay off around 3x the monthly payment. It's calculated, the interest rate is relatively low, but a majority of my discretionary income goes towards investments. The ratio changes based on the overall market.
Glad we agree. Sounds like you've got a solid plan in place. Of course, if you have a high income or your debt is relatively low, you have the option of investing and paying extra toward the debt at the same time, and that's definitely a good thing if you can do both.
Amount varied and I had a few years in my span of working when I didn't have a job.
The trick is to maximize as many retirement savings buckets as you can (401K pre-tax, roth, after-tax, IRAs, Health Spending Account) and as long as you can, and be allocated in stock index funds at least 85% or more.
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