It would be nice to think that any of us can simply save a portion of our salaries and in the end, when work has become unnecessary, we can retire with a million dollars sitting in the bank.
This is possible, but takes an incredible amount of discipline. If your profession is that of a movie star, professional athlete or race car driver where your income begins with a six or seven figure number you shouldn’t have difficulties saving a minor part of your income.
But most of us are not that lucky. If your profession is that of a doctor, lawyer or dentist you will also make a large yearly income and with an easy yearly savings plan and the odd investment, you will find it a breeze to retire with a bank account that holds well over a million dollars.
But what about the average hard working person, who goes to a desk job or a factory job every day and brings home an income in the neighborhood of fifty thousand dollars per year.
With this income and a committed savings and investment plan you could find yourself able to retire by sixty with a million dollars to live off of.
Does this sound too good to be true? Could you really work hard and retire a millionaire? Yes, but it requires a plan that you will have to stick to.
To accomplish this you would have to start saving ten percent of your income from no later than the age thirty. The earlier the better, but thirty is the age that all the advisors say must be the latest you begin if you want it to work.
So, after years of getting a good education you’ll have to work just as hard at saving as you do at working. It is recommended that you put away into an interest bearing account a minimum of ten percent of your yearly income.
That sounds like a lot of money, and it is. It may mean scrimping a little and even denying yourself a few things along the way, but if your goal is to retire a millionaire you have to save carefully to do that.
You’ll also want to find ways to increase your savings by doing some careful investing.
Careful investing means staying away from the stock market where one day your money may be worth a lot, but the next day shares can drop to less than what you paid for them.
Count on making your million to retire on by saving that ten percent yearly income; the interest you make plus your yearly raises and you should get there.
An interesting detail on savings, if you made a hundred thousand dollars per year and did the exact same savings pan, it would knock off only about seven years and allow you to retire in your early fifties with that million.
So, unless you are counting on lottery winnings to make your fortune, a plan we’d all like to fall back on but know it isn’t going to happen, you better start saving.
