If you’re like me, you have a lot going on. Let’s be honest, life is chaotic. Maybe you’re chasing around wild, little kids, checking off a never-ending home project list, juggling a jam-packed calendar, working a second job, or all of the above. Whatever your life currently looks like, you’ve probably maxed-out your time and finances…sanity and energy level too. But here’s the deal, no matter how busy or strapped for cash you are, you still need to make saving for retirement a priority because what you do now will have a huge impact on how you live in retirement. Here's an example. If you saved $150 every semi-monthly paycheck for 25 years and earned a 6% annual rate of return, you would have roughly $202,887 at retirement. Now let’s say you postpone saving for 15 years, when life is a little less hectic (U-Haul driving away, parents waving), you would have to save $625 every semi-monthly paycheck – a total of $1,250 a month – to have roughly the same balance at retirement. That’s a monstrous difference in paycheck contributions! By starting to save early in your career, you can save less per paycheck and possibly less money in general over the course of your career, because you let compounding interest and time do the work for you. Check out even more savings scenarios with the Grow Your Retirement Savings Calculator – (image and calcs adjusting). Trust me, I know it’s a struggle. Daycare, pet food, mortgage payments, and utility bills are just a few financial commitments you may have at this very moment, but so is saving for your future. Take five to log in to your MO Deferred Comp account and enroll in the plan, or if you’re already saving, increase your retirement savings contributions, even if it’s just a little bit. The longer you wait to do so, the more difficult it will be to save enough to cover your retirement income needs. Now that I think about it, it’s like laundry. The longer I wait to tackle the task, the bigger the chore it becomes to complete.
