I’m guessing that saving more money for your retirement isn’t something that keeps you up at night or something that you jump out of bed in the morning excited about. Saving for retirement isn’t very much fun or easy to do. Why should I contribute more now when I won’t see that for 50 some odd years? That’s future Ben’s problem. I totally get it, and I’m a personal finance blogger. Saving for retirement isn’t easy to force yourself to do.
Let’s face it; IRAs (individual retirement accounts) are tough. Having to take money from your bank after you get your paycheck and move it over to your brokerage account takes a lot of work and discipline. Forcing yourself to sit down and write that check (or move the money electronically) is hard, especially when you have other expenses on your mind. Sadly retirement comes at the bottom of many people’s to do list if they have to sit down and think about it. Thankfully, I’ve got two simple ways that make saving for retirement easy.
1) Sign up for your company’s 401(k) plan. Nothing makes retirement easier than automating your retirement savings. Most medium to large sized companies (and even some small ones) will have a 401(k) plan for you to participate in. Mine is super easy. I just login to my brokerage and let them know what percentage of my paycheck to pull out each pay period. This money gets pulled out and deposited into my retirement account long before that check is deposited into my bank. It doesn’t even feel like I’m missing any money either.
2) Sign up for a retirement credit card. Instead of having a credit card that gives you cash back or airline miles, there are credit cards out there (like the Fidelity one). Sure you have to have a brokerage account through them, but this credit card will give you 2% cash back and deposit it into your retirement account. That’s free money right there and you’re saving for your retirement? #Winning.
Saving for retirement is super important yet doesn’t have to be difficult. My retirement savings gets automatically pulled out of my paycheck and deposited into my retirement account. Twice a month I’m saving for retirement without even realizing it. As for those of you that love free money, a retirement credit card is a no brainer. Every time you swipe your credit card you’re saving for retirement.
Life can be hard, find ways to make it easy!
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I have the Fidelity card and it’s awesome– in my opinion one of the best cards out there. You can set up the 2% back to go into a retirement account or a standard brokerage account. They have a Visa version as well which gives back 1.5%.
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