In our last post, we talked about preparing for a better year in 2021. Just the other day I had a conversation with my grand-daughter, she said “for as long as I can remember you have always worked a lot”. She went on to say “you should be enjoying life”. Her thoughtfulness was well received but I explained to her that most of us do not prepare for retirement. Instead, we are taught to get a job, work for twenty to thirty years, and depend on social security to take care of us, which is not enough.
I know of people that bought into the idea that working for years alone would carry them through only to learn that those principles don’t work. Far too many people find that they have to look for part-time work after retirement. Why? Because most did not properly prepare for retirement.
Preparing for retirement starts very early in life so let’s look again at some of the methods that help us achieve our retirement goals. Find a job that offers a 401K retirement package and pay into it as much a year up to the maximum amount. A 401k that matches your contribution is great, it’s like free money. Additionally, homeownership allows you the ability to leverage your home if needed. However, I don’t suggest leveraging your home but it gives you a choice that renting does not. Stock investing I’m not well versed in, but like anything else, the information is out there and anyone motivated can learn. The stock market pays returns of about 5% per year and yes there are ups and downs in the market but the same is true with life. Business ownership is another component that you can use to prepare for your later years. To achieve full retirement we need multiple streams of income so that if one stream fails to produce others will keep us afloat. The aforementioned are the principles that most successful people employ.
I explained to my grand-daughter that the things I do that she calls work is not work to me. I enjoy talking with people and I hope that my conversations with others will resonate positively. Hopefully, these words will motivate people who do not save and invest to start doing so. Given my granddaughter’s age, if she follows my directives in twenty years she will still be a young woman but in a position that most could only hope for. The difference will be her investing, homeownership, and hopefully business ownership. For the record, I do invest in the market, own a home, have a small business, and continually look for other investment opportunities because I want to provide jobs for others. It’s never too late to get started so let us all begin our preparation for retirement. Warren Buffet the GOD-FATHER of investing put $126 in the stock market years ago and today that small investment is worth over four hundred thousand dollars.
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Happy New Year!
Marvin Dixon/Founder
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