There’s a YouTube channel called The Financial Diet, where the host talks about many personal finance issues, sometimes on her own and sometimes with a special guest.
On a show a few weeks ago, the topic that was discussed was whether people have enough money to retire on, have they planned well, and if not, are they ready to work somewhere for the rest of their lives just to sustain themselves. One of the statements made that was shocking and something to think about was that in today’s economy in the United States, a person ready to retire is going to need at least a million dollars to live on, especially if they live for 20 to 25 years.
The assumption is that consumers need to be ready to live comfortably on around $40,000 a year, and have to hope that they’ve invested enough so that the amount they’ve invested. Along with Social Security, some kind of pension from the company they worked for, and don’t need to live a lavish lifestyle unless they’ll continue to earn a nice income for the rest of their lives or have significantly more money than that million dollars. It’s something to think about, since more people these days are retiring much earlier if they feel they have enough in the bank.
It’s interesting to think about, because whenever we hear about someone winning a million dollars anywhere, we never hear any talk about saving money for the long haul. Be honest; if you won a million dollars tomorrow, would that be the first think you’d be thinking about?
With that said, let’s take a look at some options you have that might help your money last longer, while still allowing you to spend some of your money for pleasure, family or otherwise.
1. Talk to some financial consultants
Every state in the nation has a lot of financial consultants who are willing to help you find ways of increasing your savings and still have a bit of fun. There are companies like Sonoma Wealth Advisors that hire certified financial planners that help you diversify your savings into bonds, stocks, and other ways to help you build a stronger portfolio.
2. Figure out your level of risk averse
Risk averse means how willing you are to grow your money faster or allowing it to grow slowly, which is a steadier way to keep you moving forward as opposed to seeing your money grow fast, but not paying attention to the market, even with someone else handling your finances. Years ago, a client of ours had a personal finance consultant that helped him generate around $9,000 in 4 years, only to learn that not only did the portfolio suddenly drop around $8,000 in less than a year during the 2008 financial crisis, but the person managing it left the business without telling the client what happened or that he’d left the business entirely.
3. Find someone you can trust
To avoid issues like the one above, sometimes it’s better to go to a bank… a multi state or national institution, and speak to one of their financial consultants about wanting to invest your money. During 2008, that wouldn’t have been a bad thing to do, but in general your money is safe if there’s no great depression happening, and large banks are attached to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) that insures your money up to $250,000 if anything negative happens.
4. Invest in the stock market
The last recommendation to look into is buying stocks. Some would say that investing in crypto currency is the same kind of thing, but the rules are hard to keep in touch with, and it takes a lot of trust to do something like that; some people make a lot of money, but others can lose a lot of money faster than stocks will do to them.
The thing about stocks is that there’s a lot of markets across the world you can invest in, there’s daily newspapers like the Wall Street Journal, and you can buy or sell anytime you’re interested if you’re paying attention to what’s going on. If you have the time and faith in your financial skills, you can do it all on your own.
Or you can always use a stock broker, someone who’s investing their own money or the company they’re working for’s money, and though there’s no guarantees that everything will work properly, the average gain of the S&P Global Ratings since 1959 has been around 10.5% annually, sometimes much higher or lower, but nothing catastrophic.
