Retirement Archives - Making Sense Of Cents

Why Investing for Retirement is So Important for Women (and How To Do It)

December 30, 2019 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 2 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.

Hey everyone! Michelle speaking for a moment. Today, I’d like to introduce you to my friend Amanda Holden. She runs one of my favorite financial blogs – Dumpster Dog. Below is a guest post from her on why investing for retirement is important for women – and how you can start. Enjoy!

Play along with me for a moment: Imagine a deliciously styled woman in her 70s.

She is having a sip of her morning espresso at a sidewalk café in Paris. She’s perusing a big, beautiful novel alongside her (much younger) Parisian lover, who is bringing her a third croissant for before 10 am (because why not).

This woman is you.

Or at least, this woman could be you.

Whether or not your retirement dream includes croissants and a Parisian lover, you’re going to need to save and invest to make it happen.

We’re so accustomed to thinking about retirement in terms of an age—age 65—when in reality, retirement is an amount of money saved.

Because young people will not have access to the pension plans of our parents and grandparents, retirement is entirely our responsibility. [Read more…]

How To Reduce, Reuse, And Save More Cash

October 2, 2019 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 12 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.

Hi, this is Michelle’s editor, Ariel! You may have seen me here before talking about taking my side hustle full-time, living in a small house, and real life frugality. When I’m not working for Michelle, you can find me spending a lot of time over at M$M, working as a staff writer and editor-in-chief.

The other day I found myself asking this question in a popular FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) Facebook group:

Anyone else focusing on a zero/low waste lifestyle and merging that principal with FI?

I asked this question because, while I don’t hang around in those kinds of communities a ton, I find that what I often see is more focused on sexier topics like investing strategies and increasing your income.

Both of those are incredibly valuable tools when you’re working to improve your financial health, even if you aren’t working towards FIRE, but I was searching for advice that felt a little more relatable to my personal goals.

It turns out that I wasn’t alone. [Read more…]

12 Passive Income Ideas That Will Let You Enjoy Life More

August 19, 2019 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 24 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.

Are you looking for passive income ideas so that you can start making more money? Learning how to make passive income streams can significantly change your life by helping you earn more money and diversifying your income.

Building passive income is something that I’ve been working on for the past several years. See, I want to continue to bring in an income while being able to focus on other goals of mine, like doing more hiking or biking (which will most likely never generate income). I also want to diversify my income so that I’m not too reliant on one source.

For me, finding passive income ideas is great because I can focus more on life instead of business, and I can do it while continuing to earn a great income.

Unfortunately, many people think that passive income simply isn’t real, that it must be luck and not work, that you’re a trust fund kid, or something else.

But, that’s not true at all! All of the passive income ideas in this article are real ways to make money.

Now, that doesn’t mean that earning passive income takes literally no effort (it’s not a get rich quick scheme) – there’s probably going to be some effort to get the passive income stream started, and perhaps some effort to maintain it for years to come. [Read more…]

Five Things I Never Want To Run Out Of

July 24, 2019 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 7 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.

The following post is sponsored by TIAA.

There are five things that I never want to run out of. These include:

Travel and adventure – I always want to be able to RV, sail, hike, and ride bikes. I love being able to explore, do new things, and see what this amazing planet has.
Delicious food – Who doesn’t love food?
Dogs to pet – This one is another no-brainer.
Time with family and friends – This sparks joy, of course!
Retirement income

And, today, I want to talk more about retirement. This is a personal finance blog after all!

Retirement is so important. [Read more…]

How To Become Rich – It’s More Than Millions In The Bank

July 8, 2019 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.

Do you want to learn how to become rich? Now, this post isn’t about having millions and millions of dollars. When I say “rich” I mean having some kind of financial freedom or success.

So, learning how to become rich could mean being debt free, retiring early, paying off your house, not living paycheck to paycheck, or just having a positive net worth. What you want might be completely different than what someone else wants, and that’s okay.

When I was younger I thought that I wanted a huge house, a really fancy car, and to be able to buy whatever trendy clothes I wanted.

To me, that was being rich.

Now, I realize that, to me, being wealthy means being comfortable – no debt, money in the bank, having a wonderful family, and spending time doing what I love. [Read more…]

How My 401k Loan Cost Me $1 Million Dollars

December 21, 2018 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 32 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.

Today, I have a great guest post from a reader, Ashley Patrick. She asked if she could share her story with my audience, and I, of course, had to say yes! This is her personal story about how her 401k loan cost her a ton of money and why you shouldn’t take be borrowing from your 401k.

You’ve been thinking about getting a 401k loan.

Everyone says it’s a great loan because you are paying yourself back!

It sounds like a great low risk loan at a great interest rate for an unsecured loan.

But you know the saying “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is”.

So you’re thinking, what’s the catch?

I take out a loan without having to do a withdrawal and I pay myself back. I’m paying myself back at a low interest rate right, so what’s wrong with that?

Well, I’m about to tell you how our 401k loan cost us $1,000,000 dollars.

You see, there are a lot of reasons to not take out a 401k loan and they all happened to ME! [Read more…]

Wondering Why You Need Life Insurance? Here Are 4 Reasons Why

December 17, 2018 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 7 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.

Time and time again, I’ll come across an unfortunate story and/or a GoFundMe for a person who didn’t have life insurance and has left their family with debt, no savings, and very little to continue to live off of.

Note: Before you exit out of this page because you think it’s not worth it, many people can easily find life insurance plans for around $25 a month– so there are extremely affordable plans that exist.

Every time I see one of these stories, I think about how much I wish these families knew about life insurance, from how affordable it could be to much they need it.

Before I go on, I realize that this can be a hard subject to talk about as it’s talking about what happens when you or a loved one dies. But, learning why you need life insurance is a very important thing, and it can help your family out when they need it the most.

According to Life Insurance Awareness Month (from September 2017), around half of the people in the U.S. do not have life insurance. And, those who do have life insurance typically have much less coverage than they need, at an average of just $168,000. [Read more…]

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