Retirement and life, in general, are pretty difficult without any savings.
Trying to accumulate a pile of money or even a modest nest egg is so difficult.
Do you personally know anyone with a large amount of money saved or who is good at retirement investing? Do you think that anyone you know has a secure future?
I don’t think I do. Or at least they don’t tell me. I wouldn’t tell anyone how much I have in the bank either. It is smarter to keep that knowledge to yourself.
The people who prey on others have a sixth sense to sniff out people with money and then figure out a way to extract that money from you. When I was married my wife could tell when we had a little extra money and did not hesitate to spend it on something foolish. When we got divorced she had a way of prying what little money I did not already give her out of my wallet. She seemed to know when I had an extra $100 and would figure out a way to manipulate it out of me. It is not just banks, credit card companies, retail stores, and criminals who steal your money, sometimes it is the people closest to you.
Your job is to keep your money to retire for your desires.
But it is hard to do that. Life is set up to get you to part with all your money with as little fuss on your part as possible. They want you in their debt and in retirement debt forever. It is not in their interest for you to be free. When you are over your head in debt, life seems terrible.
It seems pointless to know how to save for retirement if you have no extra money anyway.
Taxes come out of your paycheck before you even get your money.
Health insurance comes out too.
So do all the other insurance plans that they say we need…life insurance, income continuity insurance, dental insurance, vision insurance, accidental death, and dismemberment insurance.
Sometimes it seems that more than half of what you earn is gone before you even get it.
Then the cost of living takes the other half.
After you pay your rent or mortgage, car payments, credit card bills, installment loans, utility bills, and your other insurance plans there is not much left over for gas, food, needs, fun, and your retirement money. Where is the money for what you want and your future?
There isn’t any for most of you.
What is the answer to this sick question?
I think you have to dramatically change your lifestyle. I don’t think you can plan for retirement, retire early or even have much of a life while working if you continue to persist in living the way you are living without making big, drastic changes.
Just cutting coupons, finding deals, and hoping for a small raise will not cut it.
Big changes are needed to increase your savings. Big changes.
Other Savings Options
Cutting coupons and shopping sales only gets you so far. It helps but what will really help is making a radical decline in living standards by living in as inexpensive a home as possible.
If you can avoid spending a lot of money on your housing, all these other problems will just fade away.
The biggest cost you will face is buying a house. Taxes are devastating but you have no real way to avoid paying taxes if you work for someone else.
But you can control your housing costs. Just pay less. Be satisfied with less. Rent instead of buy. If you do buy, buy as cheaply as possible. It is just so much simpler to increase your savings if you avoid buying an expensive house or renting an expensive place. Living costs you each and every month whether you enjoy it or not. Whether you are there or at the office for an extra 40 hours that month. The cost of housing is the biggest expense you can control.
You can dramatically increase your savings and your ability to have fun and have a real life with a small housing expense.
I would rather have a great retirement car that takes me to work, to business opportunities, to family outings, out to eat, to shop for sales, and for entertainment than an expensive house. Plus with a vehicle, you can move to better opportunities and you can leave whatever bad situation you are in. A house can be a prison of your own making. I believe in freedom, not prison.
Your early retirement dreams and even your later retirement years will depend on you avoiding having expensive, monthly housing costs. Why not get ahead of all the nonsense and live in a less expensive way now? You can jump-start your retirement savings with lots of cash if your housing costs are as low as possible.
As a last resort, you might have to work in retirement. This doesn’t have to be bad as long as your job is not physical.
