Making Money Into Our Golden Years
It’s a fact that you have to work now to keep the retirement years golden. Or at least as ‘golden’ as we can make them, given the current remaking our economic system is undergoing. With both Social Security and Medicare staggering around like great wounded beasts, continuing to rely on the assumption that we’re going to have much of substance from either of those two programs is hardly the way to go about living well in our senior years.
Ponder on the reality of your economic situation whenever possible. Maybe you’re sitting there massaging your legs (that leg arthritis you’ve begun to develop from all those wild things you did in your misspent youth is beginning to grow more evident, right?) and you have an opportunity to read on how we’re not saving anywhere close the amount of money we’re going to need to fund a nice retirement when we’re too old to work hard. That’s bad news.
And what’s got to give is the obstinacy many of us show when it comes to refusing to consider how we’re going to gain a meaningful retirement income. What’s clear is we need to begin thinking and planning for it NOW and not the year before we’re ready to pull the rip cord and bail out of the working man’s airplane. Relying on government social programs for our needs isn’t the smartest thing to do, so investing and saving now becomes doubly important.
There are a couple of key concepts to keep in mind in the midst of all this: Saving and investing. How many out there are doing even the minimum amount of it? And if we’re not doing much of it, when are we going to start? The world’s full of quality advice on how to do so (the Internet and cable TV’s full of business websites and shows), even in the face of current market turmoil. For a fact, quality saving and quality investing is the way to go.
Let’s take a look at a business owner these days. He might own a fine costume jewelry wholesale distributor concern of some sort and he has a few employees. However, he’s still got to look out for his own financial health, in general. Has he looked to thrift savings plans, IRAs (traditional or Roth), 401(k) accounts (still a great investment tool) and the like? If he hasn’t, what’s he going to use to fund his retirement? Social Security?
Unfortunately, he’s not going to be able to do much if he doesn’t have some savings in the bank, a few IRAs and maybe a 401(k) to help supplement the meager check he’s going to be getting from Social Security — if it even exists at all once he’s old enough to retire. And if he hopes to really enjoy his golden years, not having a concerted savings and investing plan NOW will end up costing him additional pain later, when he can least afford it.
So, then: What to do? Well, above everything else it’s necessary to develop a plan NOW rather than try to come up with one during the last five years of our working lives (though if that’s all the time we have, it’s better than nothing). Don’t sit back and assume that Social Security is going to be much more than a very small chunk of the money you’ll need to survive, in other words. Look to your financial health as you would your personal health.
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