No matter how young you are, it makes sense to start saving, because the longer you save, the more you should have! Thinking about ways to make your retirement savings last should begin as soon as you start saving for retirement. Here are a few things to remember:
Deal With Debt - Make a plan to be out of debt (house and all if possible) BEFORE you retire. Any payments you have to make out of savings will help it to decrease quickly. Making a plan early on to not have debt, or get it paid off in a timely manner will eliminate those payments. Maybe even have a plan to downsize later in your life so that paying off your house and having low cost living expenses will also help keep the spending down.
Be In the Know - Keep track of exactly how much you are saving and where you can increase the savings if at all possible. If you know what you are living on NOW and see what rate you are saving, you will know if it will be enough to keep you going or not after you retire. If you don't pay attention early on, when you are older it may be too late to take advantage of all of the ways you could have saved and built up that savings.
Ease Into Retirement - Have a plan to cut down on work at first, or have a side job or two, so that you still have some income for a while as you adjust to living on your savings. This will not only help you to spend accordingly, but emotionally/physically it will help you ease into a totally different way of living. You may think you know what retirement will feel like, but, until you are there you really don't know how it will all affect you and your family. This will help you have a bit of income to enjoy that won't dip too far into your savings, so that you can do those extra things you have been waiting to do. Also, start by taking smaller draws from your savings to start. The more you can live on less, the longer your savings will last!
This blog was inspired by the article 3 Ways to Make Your Post Retirement Plan Last on DaveRamsey.com
