5 Smart Tips for Building Your Retirement Savings

The golden years of retirement are the envy of American work life. Strong retirement savings put the gold in those golden years.

More people than ever think that they are going to be working past retirement age for a number of reasons, one of them being diminished retirement savings. Fewer people than ever have solid savings.

You don’t want to be one of those people. After a lifetime of working, it’s time to refocus your life. Here we are going over five things that are sure-fire ways to boost your retirement savings.

Prioritize Retirement Savings Early

Simply telling your benefits manager to enroll you in the company 401(k) program isn’t prioritizing your savings. The minimum effort you should make in your 401(k) is topping out your company’s match.

The impact of doing this early is significant, even if you’re a poor recent college grad. The earlier you get started in your career the better. Starting in your twenties could help you double your savings as compared to starting in your thirties.

Temper Lifestyle Spending

A lot of high spending or incurring debt on non-essentials on things like travel or luxuries is justified early in life as “living while young.” It can also be cast as impulsive or shortsighted.

Take that money and put it to work for you so you can really enjoy retirement at a reasonable age. Adding as little as an addition 1 percent to savings can have a big payout at the end of your career.

Invest Safe and Borning

Retirement savings have a long time to do their thing before you collect on them. Investing in risky, trendy or otherwise emotional investments expose you to significant risk. The longer you have that exposure, the more you stand to lose.

Make time an ally and invest in safe, long-term (boring) investments like index funds.

Reconsider & Rebalance Annually

Talking to a pro every year is important for a lot of reasons. First, make sure that you give those long-term investments time to do their thing before making changes. That gives time to make a good decision about the value of the investment.

Also, making sure that you understand how your savings impact your tax situation now and as you near retirement will keep ugly surprises from popping up.

Delay Taking Social Security Security

Social Security is taken out of your paycheck every time you get paid. The Federal Government owes that to you. But, due in part to politically generated uncertainty, the gov will want to hold off paying your Social Security payments as long as possible.

Luckily, there is a graduated and stepped payment system for those who want to wait to start to collect Social Security. Each year that you delay, the more in annual payments come to your accounts.

Delaying Social Security could lay the final brick to retirement bliss. But it is a decision that shouldn’t be taken lightly. Call us today to see how you can make the most of your tax, saving and retirement situation for yourself or your business.