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Are you over 40 and still have not saved a red cent?
So you have no money today for your inevitable retirement?
Imagine your are now 90 years old and you are looking back on your life when you were age 60. Have the last 30 years of your life been happy stress-free years? Or have you been struggling financially to live day after day?
So what can you do about your very bad situation now?
A very wise man and very good friend of mine told me once: "A single good investment is worth an entire 'lifetime' of labor." The wisdom behind this statement will be clear to you shortly.
The big question we should all be asking ourselves is "how much do we need to save to be able to support ourselves?". We cannot estimate this until make some basic assumptions:
A zero-inflation is unrealistic. It is logical to assume however about 2 percent inflation.
If inflation is higher than that, it is bad for the economy of the country. The Bank of Canada are mandated to keep inflation under control, by manipulation of interest rates.
Therefore, suppose the average rate of inflation for the next 50 years is 2 percent, then a monetary unit of one dollar, 50 years from now, is worth approximately (1 - 0.02)^50 = 36 cents. Logic proves that $1,000,000.00 dollars saved today, in retirement dollars will be worth only about $360,000 then.
$360,000 is still enough to give you an annual income of $36,000 per year - 36,000 is still well above the poverty income line.
Compound interest is powerful black magic.
Over a 50 year period, money doubles almost 7 times! Because it doubles 7 times, this means that a single $1000.00 bill invested today will grow to roughly $128,000.00!
A single effort, one time, pays forever! Other than the work you did in the first year to save the money, you do not have to do anything more for the next fifty (50) years.
128,000.00 is nearly one-tenth of the $1,000,000 dollars most people would like to have squirreled away for retirement.
If you must have a million dollars at retirement in 50 years, you'll need to invest about ten times this amount: say, $1000 a year for the next 10 years. Or roughly save $100 a month. Not too difficult is it?
If you can save more, sooner and earn more longer; this is better.
Let us not forget about uncle Sam and the federal and state taxes we all must to pay faithfully every year. We do not have very many tax breaks anymore today, but the RRSP / 401(k) is still there for us to use. Your RRSP or 401(k) is your friend because the money that you put into an RRSP / 401(k) is not taxed until you draw from the plan - at retirement.
You can in fact easily earn a ten percent (10%) return on investment inside your RRSP, and you keep the entire ten percent (10%) and the compounded untaxed growth dollars until you retire and start making withdrawals.
Imagine that this very same ten percent (10%) profit was earned outside your RRSP/401(k), and your yearly marginal tax rate is roughly 45%, you only get to keep about 5.5 percent of that! You have much less to re-invest, therefore your money will grow much less and much slower and this is not very satifactory is it?.
How do we make a double-digit return on our money today?
GICs are a low risk investment. Respectively, GICS only pay upto 5 percent. At 5%, it takes fourteen (14) years for this money to double.
A ten thousand dollar ($10,000.00) GIC will eventually grow to nearly $115,000 over 50 years. If instead saved a mere $300 each month instead of $100, you could save, for retirement, up to $300,000.00 plus some!
If you are a late-in-life saver, you will also consider about taking on a little more risk than GICs.
If you just cannot afford to wait fifty years for your retirement nest-egg, according to Statistics Canada the stock market has maintained an average return of 9% annually.
If you're not a seasoned investor, you may not be comfortable with the idea of putting your money into the stock market. If you get nothing else from this article, get this. Believe me, if you do not know what you are doing, please hire a professional to manage your stockmarket portfolio because you can so easily and quickly lose your shirt. Do not try to surf the wabes and time the markets yourself.
There are to many variables and you don't have the information required fast enough to make the timely decisions necessary to be profitable.
An inexperienced Day Trader will fail as miserably as an inexperienced gambler! The odds are very much infavour of the house!
Large mutual funds are a good investment vehicle. You can regularly invest a small amount every month in a mutual fund instead of stocks, realize better growth than if you invested in a stock or two yourself. Mutual funds reduce the risk of losing all your money because they are managed daily by professional money market analysts. Politics and the economy are very difficult to predict. Merely not being able to sell in the first few hours of a crisis can be very very costly to you and your retirement fund. A Mutual Fund manager will be ready and better prepared to properly deal with a major shift in the market so we dont all lose our shirts.
You must Plan and budget to build Savings. If your goals and your expenses are out of balance -- there's no way you can save enough to fitting your goals -- make a first pass through your expenses, seeing where you can trim them. Even consider lowering your goals a little.
It is usually much easier to save $100.00, than it is to earn an extra $200.00 because of the taxes payable. Roughly $100 in tax must be paid on that extra $200.00 you earn based on your middle class tax bracket. So planning yor retirement at a later stage in your life, starts with a change in priorities. Begin spending less rather than trying to work overtime to earn more. You may have to do without some of those "nice to have items" that you are dreaming of, or you may end up having to eat cat food in your later years if you don't!
Once you've got some savings accumulated, keep three months worth in a bank account for short term emergencies. Liquid assets are the easiest to get your hands on when yo need them. Dont worry about making big interest on this money. When you have your emergency money saved, we can talk about savings-building options, to fitting our goals. Once you have your short term nest egg squirrelled away, you can begin regularly contributing to long term investments for retirement.
Can You retire at 65? Because of modern medicine, our life expectancy is longer. Much longer now in 2005 than it was in 1927. Whereas, we used to live until an average age of 61, we now live to an average age of 78! Do you know? The chances are that if you live to be 65, there is a 25% chance that you will live well into your 90's today.
There is a big problem with this because of our life expectancy, we need live longer on our retirement savings, much longer! So it is harder to retire comfortably today! This means that if you did not start saving significantly when you were young, most likely you will NOT have enough money to live well, for very long, after you are retired, unless you win the lottery. But don't distress! The
situtation is still not that desperate.
As a matter of fact, Financial advisors are informing the 55+ people not to retire at their retirement age, but just to keep working part time, as long as they can - beyond retirement age if they can. Working part-time helps us build furthur savings or at least stretch the savings we have so we can live well into retirement - longer and richer.
The bottom line is this; we all need a way more savings and even so, one can no longer retire well on savings alone - at least not for 20-30 years of retirement - thats for sure!
What if you really dont want to work into your 70's?
What if being an associate at Wal-mart or flipping Burger King burgers for minimum wage until age 75, is not for you? This is the million dollar question!
Remember my friends statement?"One single good investment is worth an entire 'lifetime' of labor."?
What he means is this; if you have an investment that is triumph-in income, month after month; monthy income for the rest of your life , then you have succeed in securing a wealthy retirement for yourself. You can retire and not worry about running out of savings! This is the secret to wealth and a happy retirement!
Awesome. So exaclty what kind of investment am I talking about? We know real-estate rental properties are such a means because they are not a lot of work adn they bring in money month after month. This is not the only way though.
We are lucky today. We have some really good options for earning money now. In fact, because of the internet, we have the entire world as our marketplace now. Via the internet we can all have a home based-business and a customer base too!
My Advice: Consider an internet business
You can tend your internet business, a few hours a day, from the comforet of your own home or anywhere in the world you want to be! An internet business will generate monthly income for you 24/7/365 days a year! and Get this! for the rest of your natural life!!!
Here are some Recent Internet facts and Figures:
1. By 2007 there will be 1.1 billion Internet users worldwide. - IDC, 2004
2. Worldwide broadband subscribers exceeded 150 million in 2004. - Point Topic, 2004
3. Over 40% of all Americans have made a purchase online. - NDP Group, 2004
4. Over 75% of online consumers do not care whether an online store is run by a large or small company. - TNS, 2004
5. $1.6 trillion was made via e-commerce in 2003; $7.1 trillion is expected in 2007. - Source: IDC, 2004
6. A recent UK study indicated that 82% of Internet users go online to research products and services. - UK Stats Office 2004
7. More than 60 million Europeans now shop online, an increase of 50% since 2003. - Forrester, December 2004
8. US online retail sales will more than double over the next six years, reaching $316 billion by 2010. - Forrester, Aug 2004
9. 61% of small and mid-sized enterprises believe the Internet is a significant advertising medium.-The Kelsey Group, Nov 2004
10. In 2004, paid search advertising grew by 51% to $3.6 billion in the US alone. - eMarketer 2004
The internet has big potential and opportunity that we did no have back in 1927. It should not be overlooked or under-estimated!
If you can save more, sooner and earn more longer; you will have secured yourself a fabulous retirement!
http://eBiz-IQ.com has some good internet business options for a person in your situation, even if you can't save a dime today, you can retire very well-off. The internet is THE BIGGEST storefront in the world...and your customers are SEARCHING for you!
Happy Retirement!
About the Author
http://eBiz-IQ.com
email: jtmcnaught@ebiz-iq.com
Re-print Rights: You may use this article in it's entirety, all that I ask is that you contact me with an email here: ReprintRights@ebiz-iq.com to let me know. Thank You!!
JT McNaught
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