On average, Americans retire right around the age of 63. The average run of retirement is about 18 years, though folks are living longer and longer and relying on retirement income to stretch further than ever before.
According to financial experts, Americans are going to need to save at least $1,016,751 in savings if they are going to be to draw down $5000 per month for 30 years – assuming a 6% annual return on your investment with a 2% bump in inflation along the way. This gives to people plenty of saving for about 15 years of retirement on an income that is close to $60,000 a year in their retirement.
Unfortunately, your average 50-year-old American has only $42,000 saved up. The net worth of these almost retirement ready Americans is just over $45,000, which means Americans are carrying a mountain of debt. 45% of all Americans have zero saved for retirement, 38% don’t save for retirement actively at all, and 20% of Americans that do end up diving into their 401(k) early and pay a significant penalty because of it.
The bottom line is this – the odds are good that you aren’t going to be able to skate by with retirement savings but are instead going to need to effortlessly maximize your retirement income with pretty smart and savvy strategies unless you want to spend every year of your life working.
Get serious about investing RIGHT NOW
The best time to start saving for retirement is the very first day you show up for your very first job ever, but the second best time to start saving for your retirement is right now, this very moment.
Over the last five years, the S&P 500 has averaged about 15% as far as annual return on investment is concerned. This is almost triple where you want to be over the course of your retirement, and this means now is the time to dive headfirst into the world of investing to build your nest egg as big as possible for when you do eventually walk away from work forever.
Build multiple sources of income
The biggest mistake you can make today when shooting for retirement is to believe that your pension – if you have one – and your savings are going to be enough to give you the kind of lifestyle that you want when it’s time to actually retire.
A single income (even per person) is nowhere near enough to provide you with the kind of lifestyle you’d actually enjoy when it comes time to retire, which is why you need to create as many income sources as possible.
Invest in the real estate market, the stock market, build and start a business and sell it, tinker for money on the side – it doesn’t matter what you do, just make sure you have plenty of income streams coming in to really maximize your income potential.
At the end of the day, you have to do your level best to take full and active responsibility for your retirement in the future. No one else is going to take care of you as well as you are going to, and this isn’t a responsibility that you can abandon or put off unless you want to keep pushing off retirement until you are lowered into the ground.
