Save Now, Live Later

“It’s just money, you’ll make more,” is a fairly common phrase used by today’s millennials. In a world of instant gratification and two-day shipping, self-control has become nearly obsolete. We hardly bat an eye to make one click purchases or drop $300 for front row concert tickets, but putting money into a 401k or even a savings account seems like a total waste. At the ripe age of 23 I don’t have too many friends who are planning for retirement or even trying to save at all. While I do realize saving in your early twenties for something that seems like it will never come is hard, confusing, and completely overwhelming. However, being able to discover the importance of saving now versus later can impact many years of your life.

 For starters, let’s take a look at what now vs later actually looks like.  If you were to start saving at age 22 for retirement you probably wouldn’t have a ton of extra money to put in, but a little goes a long way. For example: you are 22 years old making $30,000 a year. If you were to put $225 per month (6% of your paycheck + $0.50 company match) at a 9% annual rate of return, it would give you $1,547,602 by the age of 67. That is not changing your contribution at all and assuming you started with $0 in your 401k account. Now let’s look at a 35-year-old making $60,000 a year. We are going to give them a $5,000 starting 401k balance and contribute amount of $450 a month until age 67. By the time they retire, they will have $1,044,338. In this scenario, the 22-year-old is going to retire with $500,000 more just from starting early! They were making less, contributing less, and starting with less, and still came out on top. Imagine where you could be with an increase in salary and a higher contribution amount each year. For the final scenario, let’s combine these two people. If the 22-year-old saved their $225 per month until age 35 and then their $450 a month until age 67, they would retire with $2,030,350.

Time truly is money and these scenarios show the importance of beginning now. To run scenarios of your own, Dave Ramsey has a great online calculator which can be found at https://www.daveramsey.com/smartvestor/investment-calculator.

Now after reading that, I am sure everyone is wanting to retire a millionaire, because… who wouldn’t want that? However, it’s a lot easier said than done. Finding the motivation and discipline can be a tough obstacle to overcome. Here are just a few tips to find your money motivation. The biggest thing is to surround yourself with it. Talk about, think about it, get excited about it. Grab a calendar and write out goals for where you want to be and when. Make short term achievable goals and stick to them. When you fall behind and don’t reach your goals, go back and write them again. Just keep doing this until it becomes a habit. Also, surround yourself with people who are wanting the same things. Being surrounded with friends who spend money as quick as they get it will make it that much harder to stay disciplined. Make sure to take advantage of any resources available to you (for example, everything Face The Fear has to offer!!). The more knowledge you are able to obtain, the better. One of my favorite things to do to motivate myself is to listen to Dave Ramsey’s podcast. Hearing about other people overcoming their debt and saving big is a great way to motivate yourself to do the same. So start now, don’t give up, and get rich.

Article Written By: Sydney Ford

Disclosure: The numbers given above are examples and are not guaranteed results and the company match varies by company.