What you do if you are behind in saving for retirement, assuming of course you are still working, and have an adequate income coming in, is you reexamine your spending habits and make amends. You do a balance sheet of what you earn, what you debts are, how much you need to live on, and you save the rest. If, however, you are out of work and have worries enough alone, without compounding your headaches with worry over retirement, you concentrate on finding a job and stop worrying about tomorrow. Feeding your family, keeping them in their home and in school, is about all you anyone can manage in such dire times.
The future is never ours as a sure thing, but it makes sense not to squander one’s savings foolishly, but to save for old age and retirement, if at all possible. It is also true, that to stash away every penny today to save for tomorrow, while neglecting living today, is equally wrong. Be sensible. Plan in those family vacations and those monthly dinners out with your spouse, and call that taking care of today. If today is not taken care of adequately, tomorrow may not be as golden as it was meant to be.
Social Security, while it may not be totally adequate to take care of all the expenses of the retirement years, is in place to make sure fewer retirees starve and do without food and shelter, as used to be the heartbreaking situation for those too old, or too sick, or too under prepared, to work. The best advice is to be sensible, be responsible, and find some measure of peace and happiness in knowing that each day is to be used wisely and with love and respect for all creation.
Life is not all about money. It certainly cannot buy happiness, but it can buy health care, put food on the table, and give the owners of it the satisfaction of donating to good causes that help those less fortunate. And after that short lecture, the next one is about business and how to take care of the assets one has. The best advice is not to hoard them but to use them wisely.
Toward that end, learn the lessons of the investors and the experts who have done pages and pages of studies that show the right way to manage money. Understand their dire warnings about not saving enough, and their emphasis on saving as much as possible. All that is good. They are only plying their trade of money management, they do not mean to frighten potential retirees into becoming stingy hoarders.
If they don’t come up with valid reasoning behind their facts and figures about money, and if they are not creditable, they may be out of a job. And believe it or note, money and jobs are the issues confronting all of us now. On that note then, what are some of the advice about inadequate savings accounts, or he lack thereof, that have many on soap boxes?
CNN and its money site has this to say: Their headline blares:Retirement, You’ll need far more than you think. Of course that is what Jeanne Sahadi had to say way back in 2006 on September 22. The times since have changed, and much of the money that was saved, was lost. While the advice was good, and still is good, it simply cannot still apply to everyone. Too many are out of work and as of these mornings headlines, employment is far from recovering from its downfall.
What now? Relax and plan ahead, but don’t forget about today. That’s all any of us have and will ever have is one little day at a time. Learn to live it well.