Planning a Budget?
Your Top Priority Should be Retirement Provision
So, you're planning a budget. Sooner or later we are all forced to do that. And the last thing young couples want to hear is that their retirement provision should be their top priority!
I was there myself. Many years ago. I guess I thought I was going to earn an income forever! The hard reality is that retirement arrives sooner than any of us anticipate.
Did you know that monthly paid employees get the opportunity to save a portion of their salary income for retirement only 480 times?
I woke up to the fact that my retirement provision was hopelessly inadequate when I had only 180 months left. If you try to catch up at age sixty, you'll have only 60 months left to do it.
If you have more than 300 months left and in your budget your top priority is retirement provision, it will become a lifestyle and you'll probably be one of the few who made adequate provision for retirement.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau only 4 out of 100 people who start working at age 25 will, by age 65, have adequate capital stowed away for retirement.
Don't get me wrong. You can still achieve it when you've got only 180 months left. We certainly achieved that. But it called for drastic measures. We had to change our lifestyle. We had to stop being consumers. We had to develop a minimalistic mindset.
Initially we pitied ourselves. Until we visited dear friends in Southern California. As long as we knew them they have been extremely wealthy by our standards. They just moved into the dream house they planned themselves.
How did they do it? And then the penny dropped. Their décor and furniture were functional but always minimalistic. Their lifestyle was not consumer orientated. And they have been maintaining this lifestyle since they were a young couple.
By the time we had to take the drastic measures mentioned above, they had already saved enough for their retirement and were able to 'splurge' in their minimalistic way!
Most people have other priorities when they get to the stage of planning a budget. Do yourself a favor and make your budget priority retirement provision over the long term.
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