How to Save for Your Retirement in Your 20s

Ah! Your 20s—the decade where you get your first job, your first promotion and even your first million. Without a doubt, it is a decade of firsts.

Because you’re so busy living life to the fullest, retirement might be a distant thought. Maybe it’s crossed your mind a few times but you never really gave it a second thought.

After all, thinking about something 40 years into the future isn’t practical, right? Wrong.

You have a lot of free time in your 20s. With all that time and energy on your hands, it’s actually easier to plan for retirement. Here’s how.

Decide how much you want and need.

Start with a goal. You will need a figure to work with. It doesn’t have to be exact; you can start with the usual stuff like health coverage and travel expense.

Then, you can move on to yearly, monthly and even a weekly estimate of your expenses. Sum it up and you’ll have your basic retirement fund goal.

Automate your savings.

Regardless of how big your salary is, you’ll need to make sure that some of it goes to your retirement fund.

The best way to do this is to automate your savings.

The logic is simple: automating your savings means that your default action is to save. It makes spending a more deliberate–and hopefully harder–thing to do.

Start with 10% of your income. Increase it as you get closer to retirement.

Invest.

Investing is one of the best ways to grow your retirement fund. Since you’re essentially putting away money, you might as well try to grow it.

But investing alone is not enough. You need to invest early. There’s plenty of good reasons to invest early. One, you’ll have more time to get better returns. Two, you’re spreading out the risk through a longer period of time.

Consider getting retirement plans.

Retirement plans are another way for you to grow your savings. There are even plans that you can tie with your life insurance.

Take the time to check for retirement plans based on your objectives and means. Ask your employer if you have benefits for employee retirement.

Source: Security Bank