retirement

Planning to win

~ David C.
Imagine you are standing at the end of a washed out bridge with people blindly driving your way all unaware of the fate that will behold them if they do not change their direction right away. You would, at the best of your ability, do all you could to get them to stop and go another way.
 
As a 50+-year-old genX-debt free-cancer survivor, I feel this way about many topics. Marriage, parenting, health, career, finances are all areas that by this point in life I have learned many lessons. Some through my own great mistakes and many through educated hard work successes.
 
My strongest obsession now for several years is a desire to retire without want. The journey began early in my working life when I first read The Millionaire Next Door. I was at the time single and making less than $25,000. It was amazing to learn at my young age that there is a path to wealth even for the average person. 

That seed of hope was small and at the time did not take full root other than to get me started on a low level of 401K saving.
 
I went on to live a normal life of spending and debt just like most people. Then in the spring of 1998 cancer came in another effort to wake me up. Now I had a fear of possible unmet family needs. Would we have memory building experiences? How would the son afford college? If I were to die, would my wife be left with financial security? Along the way, I also experienced job insecurity with layoffs occurring around me on average about every 12-18 months. Thinking of retirement was not a priority in part because I was unsure really if I would have a job or live that long.    
 
This little stew of experiences in some ways has left me pretty messed up.
 
So here I am soon to turn 52 and looking back while at the same time looking forward to a new stage of life. Retirement seems like an old man word but it looms as a possibility in just a few short years. Time does fly indeed and every day counts. 
 
According to this source, the median savings of someone my age is $117,000. Twenty-five year old me would have considered that to be a lot of money. Fifty-two year old me understands it to be terribly out of whack compared to what will be needed by most people to retire at a reasonable age with dignity. The person with $117,000 most likely does not realize that to have even $48,000 in income at retirement a nest egg of 1.2 million is recommended. That is a slap you in the face keep you up at night big number. Of course, you have to be aware of the number and care about it for the hand to be motivated enough to give yourself a whack.
 
Dear people wake up and realize the end of the bridge is coming and there is no reason to keep driving towards it. You know what to do. Get out of debt, live below your means and start saving now for a future that is many years away for some and just around the corner for others.
 
Whys and whats are easy to dream about. It is in the hows that we get hung up but the reality is that with the plethora of resources available to us today there no excuse not to win. Those who do not are doing so by either conscious or unconscious choice.
 
I plan to win. Just as importantly to me, I want you to win too. Here some resources to get you started. Join me and we will win together. 
 
 
 

How Diet Coke almost stole my retirement dreams

~ David C.
I still remember the day I realized that my daily diet coke habit was stealing my retirement dreams.
At the time, Coke was running a promotion using a code from a bottle cap to get prizes. You would save your cap, enter the number on a website and points would add up for something fabulous. I kept these caps in a desk drawer and it did not take long for these to really pile up since I had a long time frequent habit of visiting the machine at work several times a day. There was the before work Coke,mid-morning Coke, lunch Coke, mid-afternoon Coke and usually something towards the end of the day.
One afternoon I looked at the pile of caps wondered how much in cost that represented. Next, I began to think about cost over time and if I continued this pattern what it would mean in the long term. The final kicker was when I plugged in my average monthly diet coke spending into a savings calculator and considered how much $5 a day applied to retirement could mean if saved for the next 20 years.
The result was mind blowing. Over the course of 20 years these drinks would cost me $59,307 in opportunity. That is real money and a real chunk of change.
I decided at that moment to dig deep into my spending habits to find savings anywhere I could and then apply that savings to my get out of debt, save for kid college and retire comfortable plan. That was close to 20 years ago and I bet I have not visited a coke machine more than a few times at work. The savings redirected over this long period of time has made a real difference in the direction of our dreams.
We all have our cap pile spending excesses and most people put little thought into how these seemingly minor everyday expenses can add up to steal our future. This can be retirement, college for the children and more.  
Here is a typical pile for the average person in a month:
  • $100 sodas or fancy coffee ($5×20) 
  • $160 lunch ($8×20) 
  • $80 Snacks ($2×20)
  • $50 Gym Membership
  • $12 Netflix
  • $10 Spotify 
  • $12 Premium cable channel upgrade

 =$424 a month
These “small” charge items if instead invested with an average return over time:
Would equal $251,463 total saved in 20 years at 8%
Would equal $622,495 total saved in 30 years at 8%
Would equal $1,423,526 total saved in 40 years at 8%
Notice that on this list I am not including things like expensive vacations, dinners out, designer clothes, new cars, weekend fun or any other items many people tend to overdo. For many, these are just the basics.
If you are in your 20’s and 30’s listen to me now and wake up! Your small choices here and there to ensure you are saving will compound and open doors that only a savings calculator and your mind can imagine. You must start now if you want to have the freedom to do what you want as you get older and not live in poverty at retirement.
My journey to the golden exit is coming quickly and I am thankful for that day so many years ago when a pile of Diet Coke caps helped trigger a dream.  
You can do it too. You just need to educate yourself, write down where you want to be financially in the future and start today making the changes today that will secure your future tomorrow.

Take action
What is one thing this month you could give up and then re-direct to saving opportunity? Even a 1% increase to your 401K or IRA will make a huge difference over a long period of time.