10 Ways to Save More for Retirement

Everyone wants to save more money for retirement, right? Well let’s talk about 10 different ways that you could potentially save more for those golden years. Number one, start early. The younger you start saving, the more time your money has to grow before you retire. But I think the big one here is even if you didn’t start in your 20s or your 30s and then you started later in life, it’s just getting started. So make sure that you get started investing and saving for retirement. Number two, redirect your raise. You know, maybe you’ve been living just fine on your current salary and you’re blessed to get a raise. Well instead of buying something else or buying a new toy, put that money to work for your future. Stash it away in a 401K or the IRA and so forth. So reallocate that raise. Number three, contribute your tax refund. Okay, if money was there with Uncle Sam and you never saw it in your account to begin with, well you can use Form 8888 and direct that tax refund directly to your retirement account. So you don’t have any opportunity to spend it. Number four, reallocate win falls. So often I have clients where they have a win fall, like an inheritance for an example. And you know they say, I want to buy a toy. I want to get a boat or a truck or maybe a cottage or something like that. And that’s great and you can certainly do that, but maybe take a portion of those funds or all of those funds and put them away for you future. Invest those funds instead of buying that toy. Number five, make sure you’re taking advantage of your full 401K match. So often I see people that you know they have the 401K and they’re contributing to it and so forth, but they don’t realize how much they’re actually putting away. So every company has a little bit different match. So you could have a 3% match, a 4%, maybe even a 7% match. Very frequently I see where people are putting away, maybe it’s 4% and their company offers 6%. Well if your company is offering that 6% and you’re only doing 4%, you’re giving up 2% of free money. So don’t miss out on those 401K matches. And then number six, take advantage of tax breaks okay, by contributing to 403Bs, 401Ks , IRAs and so forth, you’re getting a tax break by doing that, right? You’re deferring the income on those contributions that you’re making. And so that’s great. But now a days I see a lot of people. They’re just filing their taxes by themselves online. And you can do that, but what if you’re missing out on some tax breaks? It might benefit you to work with an Accountant. The cost might be worth it because if he can find you some different tax breaks and you can use that money that you saved on taxes and put that to your future in retirement, that can make a world of a difference. Number seven, learn about investing and retirement planning. Now you’re watching the show, so you’re ahead of the game here. But you know this more applies as you get closer to retirement because there’s so much more involved in retirement planning than just looking at investments. So here at Centennial Wealth, we not only do investment planning, but we also talk about income planning, estate planning, tax planning and health insurance planning. So retirement planning, it’s a thousand piece puzzle. And you want to make sure that all of those pieces of the puzzle are lining up to make your golden years the best they can be. And then number eight, automate savings. So you know with a 401K and 403B, that is typically automated. It’s just a payroll deduction right to those retirement accounts. But what about an IRA? Or maybe you have some extra savings in the bank and you want to get that working for you. You can automate that and have that go directly to an IRA or to a brokerage account for an example and have it so it’s set up in a way, that you don’t even think about it. It’s automated. So that’s something you really should do. And number nine, increase your income. So this one might be tough, but if you want to save more for retirement, maybe it’s finding a side hustle. Something that you do on the weekends that you enjoy and you can stash that money away for retirement. And then finally number 10 and this is the most important way that you can save more for retirement and that’s to create a budget, okay? So tally up all of those expenses and figure out where all of your money is going . Then and only then can you determine well how much can you actually save for retirement. And then after that would be to start investing, okay? So there’s 10 different ways that you can save more for retirement. If you have questions, please don’t hesitate to give us a call.