Do you know how much you'll need for retirement?
It's probably more than you think.
70% of Millennials and 60% of Boomers have no idea what they will need for retirement.
Everyone knows they should get started on saving as early as possible, but retirement planning easily gets put on the back burner. Since it's really important, we're going to help get you started - with a challenge.
Challenge Accepted
Your challenge is to figure out what retirement looks like for you.
Setting an accurate retirement goal is key to actually being able to retire. Makes sense, right?
Perhaps the most important thing to understand is how spending factors into the amount you need to save.
Let's start by figuring out how much you'll need. Betterment has an awesome free calculator that determines how much to save and invest for retirement, creates a personalized plan for you and gives you a spending road map.
It takes about 3 minutes to complete and *doesn't* require your email address - you should give it a spin.
We also talked about it here.
Take the free money.
Next time Susan from HR comes by your desk to ask if you would like to join the company's 401k plan - the answer is YES for two reasons.
1. You will pay less in taxes. A 401k also lowers your taxable income. If you earn $5,000 a month and invest $1,000 into your account, you are only taxed on the remaining $4,000.
2. Most employees match contribution (aka free money) If you invest $1,000 a month of your income and your company matches 25% you will get a FREE $250.
Wait, what? You're too young to be worrying about retirement? Take a look at this.
Don't be a Susan. It's better to contribute some money (even if it is a trivial amount) than to do nothing. And if your company doesn't offer a 401k plan that doesn't mean you can't open your own retirement account.
Already have a 401k and want to optimize its growth over the long-term? Well guess what, there's a super high quality tool that will help you do just that. You're welcome ;)
1 in 3 Americans have nothing saved for retirement
Yup. It's the sad hard truth.
What's worse is that 28% of people 55+ have $0 saved.
Apparently, saving for retirement isn't one of Americas greatest strengths.
Most Americans are really falling short of the amount they need to have for a comfortable retirement.
According to GoBankingRates survey the most common responses to the question of what people have saved for retirement across all age groups are "I don't have retirement savings".
Women are behind in the retirement savings race with 63% saying they have less than $10,000 saved. Besides the pay gap, women also are more likely to gaps in employment to raise children which can also to contribute to the lack of savings.
But they can't afford to fall behind.
Women are also more likely to live longer, increasing their chances of outliving retirement funds.
So, it's not that Men are off the hook, it's just that Women need to doubly conscious about retirement savings.
We want to know
How much do you have saved for retirement?
Just reply to this email, we're here to help and cheer you along!
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