Posted on 02/24/2011 9:55:30 PM PST by BenLurkin
Establish smart spending habits. Live like you're poor. How do you do that? Drive your cars into the ground, don't eat out very much, avoid expensive and potentially unhealthy processed foods, buy food in bulk, buy just enough clothes to fit your needs, and use public transportation. ... Use credit cards only as a convenience to avoid carrying cash; limit your credit card spending so that you can easily pay off the balance each month. Make every dollar count with your spending, so you can free up money to invest in the future.
Get healthy. One of the best things you can do for your retirement years is to establish lifelong, healthy, eating and exercise habits. Doing so won't increase your spending, but it will go a long way to preventing the depletion of your financial resources in your retirement years due to high bills for medical and long-term care expenses.
Save at least 10 percent of your pay for your retirement. This includes any match you might get from your employer. For example, suppose your employer matches dollar for dollar on the first four percent of pay for your contributions. In this case, you'll need to save six percent of your pay — four percent to get the four percent match, plus two percent to get up to 10 percent. Save this amount for 30 or more years, and you'll most likely get in the ballpark of having accumulated enough money for retirement. If you've got the time or patience, it would be better to use an online retirement planning calculator to get a more accurate estimate your savings needs. Invest your retirement savings in a good target date fund, unless you have the time and skill to learn about investing and constantly monitor your investments.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
Ah. KG9 Kid.
It sounds lousy when you are young. I guarantee when you are old it sounds like something I desperately wish I’d done. You don’t feel old inside—see, that’s the secret. It’s the same you. But suddenly, it’s there and you need more pills and you can’t just go out and get a manual labor job and honestly, noone want’s to hire you when you’re 60. No matter how cool and employable I was when I was 30 and 40, it ain’t true anymore.
And if you can’t handle the “exciting adventures at age 79” idea, try, the not having to eat dog food when you’re 79 idea. Or, the being able to buy you grandaughter a gift for her birthday idea when you’re 79 idea. I guarantee it’ll mean plenty when you’re there.
Noone wants to take away your grand adventure. Just save 15% of what you make while you’re on it.
Have six children in the hopes one will care for you.
*) Save and then keep 6 months gross income in a liquid account
*) Open a 401(k) and put as much as possible into it
*) Pay yourself first — save at least 10% of your income and keep it in safe investments. use this to purchase things.
*) You’re 20? Think of SSI as a tax. You will never see a dime. Plan accordingly.
*) Splurge once a month — more when you get older.
*) ALWAYS pay cash, except for cars and a mortgage (when you are ready for one). Use Credit cards like 23 day cash advances — pay them down to ZERO every month.
*) Along those lines, DO WITHOUT. If you can’t pay for an appliance or doo-dad in cash, then DO WITHOUT. Don’t finance stuff.
Presuming God allows me to live to 79, it will be less like eating dog food and more like eating dogs.
I'm imagining an America something more like whatever survivors there are will be roaming the derelict wasteland of the collapsed American empire, wearing hockey gear lined with rabbit fur and driving around on cobbled-together warmachines made of salvaged car parts -- doing battle with crossbows on the crumbling highways for the last remnants of petrol resources, fresh water, and whatever loose ammunition there is left.
Either that, or society survives in a miserable gray concrete collective of neo-Soviet influence with bullhorns rousing us from our communal sleep chambers blasting scratchy Maoist revolutionary martial music goading us to the morning group flag exercises on the nearby athletic field. Then, all of us shaven-headed citizen comrades will hurry away to our societal-ordained labor pools denoted by our specialized jumpsuit colors, right after the morning Vegan meal of cold starchy noodles with our choice of simulated flavoring. By then, President Obama will be regarded to be much the same sort of man that Teddy Roosevelt is remembered by left wingers today -- an repulsive ultra-right cavalier lunatic leader of a shameful age, a fitting example of everything that was wrong with the "Old Amerika".
Given a choice, I prefer the first scenario even if I have to eat barbequed dogs shot with a crossbow from atop my battlecar. At least there'd be hope for a Renaissance at some point in the distant future after the Dark Ages petered out.
Do you have a recommended method of suicide for those whose money goes away faster than they planned?
I just got correspondence from BC-BS that my health premium is going to $809 effective 4/1/11.
Does this mean I should support obama?
The banks don’t pay enough interest on your money to even cover inflation.To add insult to injury,the government demands that you pay income tax on your interest gains.
Vote Democrat?
Don't agree with that at all. If you feel you need to leave your kids your hard-earned money, you likely did not do your job as a parent - which is to raise your kids to be self-sufficient and not parasites on society.
Nothing is more pathetic than to see middle-aged adults sitting around waiting for their elderly parents to kick off so that they can grab their "inheritance" and buy that new sports car or pay off those credit card bills (so they can run them right back up again). I've seen it happen too many times.
I also do not agree with the premise of the article which is to live like a pauper in your prime years so that you can vacation in Florida and play golf when your 75. Screw that, I'll eat steak today (while I still have my teeth) and if I am destined to eat mac and cheese and drive around in a beater of a car, I'll do it when I'm too old to care.
Lastly, can we please get off the whole "retirement" kick? I have absolutely no idea why so many people look forward to retirement and see it as their lifetime dream. Retirement is something to do when you are preparing to die. In the meantime, work as long as you can and contribute to society as long as you can. As you do so, live a little. Take the wife out to dinner on a regular basis, go on vacations while you are still young enough to enjoy them, drive that new car with the bells and whistles today - not when you're 75 and your kids are trying to get your license taken away because you drove up on the curb and ran over the mailbox one too many times while taking your weekly trip to CVS to fill your prescription medicines.
That is key to a long and rewarding life.
Save your retirement funds in something not named the US Dollar...
Get a job in a remote location or war zone where few others are willing to work and there’s nothing to spend your money on.
Save almost all the money you make there for several years. Then pay cash for your first house and you’ll be in a good position early in life.
Get a job in a remote location or war zone where few others are willing to work and there’s nothing to spend your money on.
Save almost all the money you make there for several years. Then pay cash for your first house and you’ll be in a good position early in life.
Invest in non-hybrid seeds,and weaponry/reloading equipment.
Curiously, this is also the answer for those who have far too much money to spend before they croak and desperately seek to expend their capital rapidly to meet my 'dollar:death equality' ratio.
Charlie Sheen is presently faced with this predicament. He's setting a fine example for others to follow.
Correct, which is why the best tactic is to default to creditors rather than dying with a surplus. This ensures a zero-sum end to the game.
I just meant these tips to be individual pieces of advice, not work together as a whole.
And land of course. Plenty of land.
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