Retirement?

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-06-2005
Retirement?
1
Tue, 04-04-2006 - 11:26am

I am 25, and DH is 32, so I know we have a while before we have to "worry" about retirement.

 

Image hosting by TinyPic

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-25-2006
In reply to: callmearavis
Tue, 04-04-2006 - 11:44am

Aravis,
Someone on this board provided me this link and I think it is the best calculator I've used to date:
http://www.bankofamerica.com/financialtools/index.cfm?view=planning&calcid=retire02i

I think one important lesson my dad taught me was as his income grew each year, they were very disciplined about putting that increase to their retirement NOT their lifestyle. I always thought that they put all of every raise for a number of years into retirement. I'm not sure if that is the case but I've tried to do at least 1/2 of every pay raise through the years.

I think the most important thing right now for you would probably be to just start-no matter how small. The 401k option is great because it is gone before you ever see it and because they pull it pretax, you save more than you lose in take home pay which always feels really good. The thing I would recommend with that is to set it up as a % of his pay instead of a flat amount. Then, at the very least, you raise your contribution when there is a raise without any action from you. Ideally you would also raise the %. The other thing you want to look at is a Roth IRA but it is going to take some more discipline because you are going to have to actually make the contribution. Oh, and when you choose your investments, be sure to choose a fair degree of aggressiveness because otherwise you won't outpace inflation. You're young...you can take some risks.

Hope that makes some sense.

Peg