Retirement Archives - Page 3 of 12 - Making Sense Of Cents

Change Your Life By Saving Just $1 More Each Day – How Much Should A Person Save Each Month?

December 4, 2017 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 38 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

We all know that saving money is important, and asking yourself “how much money should I save?” can be a difficult question to answer when beginning. Being a personal finance expert, I am asked this question a lot.

How much money should I save each month? How much do I need to retire? These are common questions I receive and you will finally receive an answer! #howmuchmoneyshouldisave #howmuchmoneyshouldyousave #howmuchdoineedtoretire Between saving for emergencies, retirement, vacations, etc. there are a lot of things to consider. And, knowing how much to save is something that many people don't often talk about. When it does come up, it can seem like there is no straight answer.

I’ve talked a lot about savings on this blog, and in my post 56% Of Americans Have Less Than $10,000 Saved For Retirement, I stated that 56% of Americans have less than an average of $10,000 in retirement savings and 33% have no retirement savings at all. This is something incredibly important to address!

Other interesting statistics mentioned in this article include:

42% of millennials have not begun saving for retirement.
52% of Gen Xers have less than $10,000 in retirement savings.
About 30% of respondents age 55 and over have no retirement savings whatsoever.
Nearly 75% of Americans over 40 are behind on saving for retirement.

[Read more…]

How I Retired In My 30s – From Ugly Crying To Retiring Just 10 Years Later

October 27, 2017 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 42 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Hello! Today, I have a great article from JT. JT has a great story about how he was down to his last dollars living in a hostel, to hitting his retirement number just a little over a decade later. If you're looking for another great retirement article, I also recommend How This 28 Year Old Retired With $2.25 Million. Below is his article on how to retire in your 30s. Enjoy!

Have you ever seen a grown man ugly cry? Our faces scrunch up like a squeezed sponge, wringing the water from our eyes. Our shoulders shake uncontrollably. We gurgle out a noise that’s a cross between a laughing hyena and a grunt. We’re not pretty.

It was 2000. I was ugly crying on the bed of the Spanish Harlem hostel where I was living, down to my last dollars. Months earlier, I graduated college, sold my car, and drove from Los Angeles to New York City with sunny West Coast optimism. Then after months of getting rejected from job after job after job, reality blew in like an East Coast blizzard.

They say, “New York City: If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.” For those of us who have tried, it can feel more like, “Since I can't make it here, I can't make it anywhere.”

I wasn't crying because I failed. I was ugly crying because I thought I was a failure.

And yet, a little over a decade later, I hit my retirement number. So what happened between the tears of sadness and the tears of joy? I'll tell you exactly what I did to hit my retirement number in my 30s. [Read more…]

Here’s What I Learned From Working For Millionaires

October 9, 2017 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 42 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Before I became a full-time blogger, I spent a little over three years working as a financial analyst at a small valuation and investment banking firm. We handled situations related to M&A, business valuation, estate and gift tax, and more.

Due to the nature of my job, many of our clients were very wealthy.

Very wealthy.

I saw kids who had millions, successful business owners, and one of our clients was a very famous celebrity.

The majority of our clients were, I say this again, very wealthy – wealth that I could never even dream of.

Back then, I was fresh out of college and struggling financially. I was living paycheck to paycheck and working for clients who had millions – it was an interesting time.

And, I had never really met anyone with the type of wealth that my clients had. Before this job, I always thought these people didn't really exist. Or, at least, I never thought I would meet them.

However, I regularly met with these types of clients, and surprisingly, a lot of them were very “normal.”

Quick note: I recommend reading the book The Millionaire Next Door. It's a great book that talks about this subject!
[Read more…]

Reaching Early Retirement Through Dividend Growth Investing

September 22, 2017 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 17 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. 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 - 5 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. 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

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. 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 - 34 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. 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…]

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