Retirement Archives - Making Sense Of Cents

Reaching Early Retirement Through Dividend Growth Investing

September 22, 2017 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 6 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Hello! Dividend investing is a very interesting topic. Today, I have an expert who has appeared on Forbes, Motley Fool, MSN Money, TheStreet, and more, and he is going to share tons of great information on this subject. You may remember him from his previous contribution How I Became A Successful Dividend Growth Investor. This is a guest contribution by Ben Reynolds. Ben is the CEO of Sure Dividend. Sure Dividend helps people build high quality dividend growth portfolios for the long run.

Early retirement is the financial state of being where you don’t have to work. You only work if you want to.

Early retirement is reached when your passive income exceeds your expenses. The average retirement age in the United States is 63.

Retiring at any age is an accomplishment, but I think you will agree with me when I say that the earlier you retire, the better.

There are 6 key factors that determine how long it will take for you to reach retirement:

Your income (how much money you make)
Your savings rate (the percentage of your income you save)
Your expenses (how much money you spend)
The size of your investment account (how much you already have saved)
Your investment returns (how fast your investments are growing)
The yield on your investment portfolio (how much your investments pay you)

[Read more…]

Does Confusion Lead To People Saving Less?

September 19, 2017 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 4 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

As I talked about in the article 56% Of Americans Have Less Than $10,000 Saved For Retirement, 56% of Americans have less than an average of $10,000 in retirement savings and 33% have no retirement savings at all.

This is a very scary statistic, especially considering how important saving for retirement and investing both are!

Even though prioritizing your future is important, the average person is behind when it comes to saving for retirement.

Saving for retirement now is important for many reasons, such as:

It can help make sure you aren't working for the rest of your life.
You can retire sooner rather than later.
You can lead a good life well after you finish working.
Compound interest means the earlier you save the more you earn.

[Read more…]

Quiz – How Serious Are You About Early Retirement?

July 7, 2017 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 30 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

This early retirement quiz will show you how prepared you are for early retirement. Come and take it now! A few months ago, Joe from Retire by 40 published the quiz How Serious Are You About Early Retirement? I took the quiz (BudgetsAreSexy did too!) and found it informative and entertaining. I thought it would be fun to share my answers with you and let you know about the early retirement quiz, if you haven't taken it yet.

Early retirement is a great financial goal to have.

For us, I don't know when or if we will ever completely stop working, but having the option to is important.

Looking at early retirement as a goal, whether you stop working completely or not, means financial stability is a top priority for you. You just never know what may happen, and that stability is always a great thing to have. [Read more…]

20 Ways I Saved a 20% Deposit To Purchase My First Investment Property At 20

May 26, 2017 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 33 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Michelle's quick note: Today, I have a great blog post on how to save money for a large deposit from Rachael, who is a long-time reader of Making Sense of Cents. Rachael purchased her first investment property at the age of 20 by saving for a deposit and found many great ways to save for the 20% deposit. Below is her blog post. Enjoy!

I bought my first property with a 20% deposit when I was 20. I started saving for a deposit with my money, my parents never gave me a cent. How did I do it? I bought my first investment property with a 20% deposit when I was 20 years old (admittedly I was 2 weeks shy of turning 21!). I accomplished saving for a deposit with my own money, my parents never gave me a cent. So how did I do it?

1. The first thing I did was start applying for jobs as soon as I turned old enough to get a job. I started working when I was 15 as a checkout chick at Woolworths. Not very glamorous, a bit boring and repetitive but I was earning money! I worked about 10 hours a week during my last 2 years of high school, and worked around 20 hours per week during the school holidays. I worked at Woolworths for 3 and a half years and saved a good chunk of the money I earned.

Related: 75+ Ways To Make Extra Money

2. When I worked during high school the only time I would ever say no to a shift is if I was sick or had an exam the next day. It didn’t matter if I didn’t want to go to work (does anyone ever actually want to go to work?) I hated that job but I wanted a property so I went to work. [Read more…]

56% Of Americans Have Less Than $10,000 Saved For Retirement

April 10, 2017 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 57 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Is saving for retirement important? Some people think so. But, if you love spending all of your money on things you want right now, like lavish vacations and designer clothing, then maybe learning how to save money for retirement isn’t for you.

Just kidding, that's horrible advice.

Your future is very important and you can significantly damage it if you are only thinking about the present.

Let me tell you again, saving for retirement is extremely important. If you keep putting it off, it's only going to get harder, and it'll most likely add a lot of stress to your life.

Even though prioritizing your future is important, the average person is behind when it comes to saving for retirement.

Saving for retirement now is important for many reasons, such as:

It can help make sure you aren't working for the rest of your life.
You can retire sooner rather than later.
You can lead a good life well after you finish working.
Compound interest means the earlier you save the more you earn.
You won't have to rely on your children or others in order to survive.

As you can see, saving for retirement is very important. [Read more…]

How To Get Rich: The Steps To Build Wealth Now

March 29, 2017 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 36 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

The average person probably wants to learn how to get rich.

The average person wants to learn how to get rich. If that's you, read more here so that you can learn how to become rich with no money, at any age, etc. Read this if you want to learn how to get rich quick and fast, make more money, learn new ideas, how to get rich young, my best tips, and more! While many think figuring how to get rich may be impossible, I'm here to tell you that it isn’t. And no, you don't need to win the lottery or become a professional athlete.

The meaning of wealth and being rich means something different to everyone. For some, it means having lots of money, for others it may mean having a positive net worth, and for others it may be to retire one day.

Whatever your definition of “rich” is, everyone has the potential to build and improve their financial situation.

If you want to be rich one day, then you'll have to form good financial habits now, work hard, and reach outside of the norm.

Learning how to get rich won't be easy – but what good things come easy anyways?

For many people, learning how to get rich may seem impossible and completely unattainable, but that’s simply not true. [Read more…]

How This 28 Year Old Retired With $2.25 Million

March 20, 2017 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 61 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

This woman retired early at the age of 28 with $2.25 million and still lives an incredibly luxurious life. Here's how she reached early retirement.

I’ve recently decided to start a new series where I interview people who are doing extraordinary things with their lives. First up, I have JP Livingston, who retired at age 28 with a net worth of $2.25 million. And, her net worth is still increasing!

Of that total, 60% of her net worth came from saving, while 40% came from growing her money through investing. This is why investing your money is so important, and it’s how you really allow your money to grow for you!

JP grew up listening to stories about financial insecurity during her parents’ upbringing. The freedom that early retirement brought really appealed to her, and who doesn't want to retire early anyways?

She is now retired at the young age of 28 and says that she still lives “an incredibly luxurious life.” And, she managed to retire early while living in one of the most expensive places in the world – New York City. [Read more…]

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