Save Fast for Your Approaching Retirement
By Shane Flait © 2008

If you’ve reached 55 years of age, you’re fast approaching your retirement. You may be far behind on savings because of hard times, neglect, or financial catastrophe. What can you do now to create some financial security for your later years. Get on a program to succeed!

It’s never too late to achieve realistic goals. With perseverance, planning, and sacrifice, you can still retire in comfort - even with a late start. But you’ve got to orient yourself to succeed. Set up a strategy for success.

Retirement requires some assured income with expenses minimized to allow you to afford reasonable comfort and happiness. Let’s look at generating income first, then we’ll consider minimizing expenses.

Your retirement income comes from 4 areas:

·         social security,

·         company pension,

·         savings, and

·         part-time work. 

These days you may have no company pension because of all the defined contribution plans that have exploded over the last 25 years. Those would be part of your savings now. You can find out what social security benefits to expect by going to the social security website.

To produce savings for your retirement, you’ll need to be more aggressive than others to develop them. Because you’ll statistically live several decades more at 55, you have plenty of time for savings to grow - especially under tax-advantaged investments. Maximize your savings for as long as possible.

You can contribute $4,000 per year with and additional $1,000 catch up for those over 50 to Traditional IRA and Roth IRA plans.  With 401(k)s and their Roth version you can contribute a lot more.  If you have your own business, there are more plans that allow you to make large contributions if you can create enough business income.

Maximizing savings may require extra sacrifice but you’re rearranging your life to survive and enjoy yourself – but perhaps on less than you think! Start envisioning a philosophy of living on less by deciding what’s really important to you for producing real happiness. Shed all the frills and superfluous expenses. Work on your health by doing exercise and eating a healthful diet. This will pay off in later years.

Get out of debt now since it drains your ability to maximize savings. Trade down your auto and house for a healthy reduction in living expense.

If you’re an employee, consider starting a business on the side. Choose one that you can do as you get older. One that you can do anywhere is ideal. And pick one you’ll enjoy doing since you’ll probably be working past 65. Picking part-time, enjoyable work will keep you more ont the ball during retirement too.

Lastly, consider where you might live in the years to come. You may decide to move to a cheaper part of the U.S. or to Central or South America where you can live well on a lot less. You’re only limited by your imagination here. Look into the options.

 

Shane Flait is a writer and educator. See more at www.EasyRetirementKnowHow.com