Techniques for Retirement Saving

Technique matters a lot in tennis, golf, basketball and a host of other sports and activities. It also matters to investors. If a middle income American approaches investing--especially long term retirement saving--the right way, he or she can be hundreds of thousands of dollars better off when receiving the retirement watch, than someone's whose technique is poor. Here are a few basic pointers that can take you a long way.

Calculate your net worth regularly. Keeping score is essential. You have to know if you're making progress. You'll need to know when you're not making progress or losing ground, so you can take action to turn the tide. Knowledge can be painful in times of market downturns, but avoiding reality won't improve your retirement finances. You may or may not have a fixed saving goal. Having a goal is good, but not essential. See http://blogger.uncleleosden.com/2007/04/goals-for-retirement-saving-and-why.html. But it's essential to know where you stand. That knowledge alone will keep you focused on building wealth for the future. Calculate your net worth at least every three months. See http://blogger.uncleleosden.com/2007/04/secret-to-building-wealth.html.

Automate the saving process and use retirement accounts. Participate in any 401(k) or equivalent retirement plan your employer may offer. Maximize the amount you contribute. Some people think you might want to contribute only enough to get an employer match and then contribute to a Roth IRA; this isn't a bad idea but you have to be conscientious about the Roth contributions because they aren't necessarily automatic (read on for the solution to this problem). If you don't have access to an employer sponsored plan, open an IRA--or a Roth IRA if you think your future tax rates will be higher than today's--and arrange with your bank to have funds transferred every month (or every two weeks if you are paid on a biweekly basis) to the IRA. It's a good idea to use retirement accounts like 401(k)s and IRAs because they are separate from your regular bank and securities accounts, and the money in them is harder to spend before retirement. For more information, see http://blogger.uncleleosden.com/2007/04/automate-to-accumulate.html.

Average returns take you to Lake Wobegon. Money managers (such as those at actively managed mutual funds) usually don't perform as well as market averages like the S&P 500. There are a number of reasons for this, including their higher trading costs and their compensation. But the bottom line is you are likely to end up with less. Focus on long term gains. Stick with index funds and other low cost investments. If you aim to get the market average for a return, you'll probably end up doing better than average. For more, see http://blogger.uncleleosden.com/2007/06/why-average-investor-does-well.html.

Keep it simple. Investing is, among other things, a sales transaction. A financial firm is the seller and you're the buyer. Complexity favors sellers and places you at a disadvantage. The seller will naturally know more about the product than you will. The law requires that sellers of financial products make a variety of disclosures to buyers. But even if those disclosures are made, the seller will probably still have a better understanding of the product than you will. So you may have trouble figuring out if the product is truly to your advantage. The complexity of some annuities and other insurance products, and some leveraged ETFs, is so great as to make them virtually opaque. Investing in opacity isn't a good idea. Complex products also tend to have higher costs, which negatively impact investor returns. Stick to index funds, and maybe some individual stocks and bonds. Plain old bank CDs aren't bad when the markets seem turbulent. If you don't understand a financial product, avoid it.

The easiest budget of all--save a good percentage of your income (especially if you're self-employed). Budgeting sucks and it seems like every month something comes up that you didn't anticipate. Then, there are the "discussions" with your significant other about how much should be allocated to what expenses, and also last week's rampage off the budget. If you want a simple way to budget, don't focus on how much you spend, but instead on how much you save. Target a good-sized percentage of your monthly income (10% is good, 15% is much better, and 20% is a home run), and make sure that come hell or high water you save at least that much. If replacing your car's exhaust system one month prevents you from hitting your goal, then add enough more the next month or two so that you backfill the deficit. The percentage-of-income-saved method allows you to avoid a lot of handwringing over lattes or not, and inter-spousal sniping, while meeting retirement goals. If you can consistently save 15% to 20% of your earnings over the course of a 30 to 40 year career, you could end up with enough to pretty much maintain your pre-retirement lifestyle during your golden years. If you're self-employed and have an uneven income, it's particularly important to save a good-sized percentage of your income because you can't easily automate the saving process. For more, see http://blogger.uncleleosden.com/2009/07/simplest-financial-plan-of-all.html.

Build your benefits. Even though private sector employers are abandoning pensions faster than New York high society abandoned Bernie and Ruth Madoff, just about everyone has the equivalent of a pension through the Social Security system. Although much maligned and stereotyped, Social Security is the port in the storm for tens of millions of Americans. The longer you work, the greater your benefits will be. Even though the level of Social Security benefits is subject to the whim and caprice of Congress, the tenure of members of Congress is subject to the whim and caprice of voters (including most of the tens of millions of Social Securities recipients). Whatever Congress may do in the future about Social Security benefits, it won't destroy the system and you'll be better off by working longer. If you're fortunate enough to have access to a pension, work as long as you can to boost your benefits. You'll sleep better, without having to buy a new mattress, if you can count on the automatic deposit of a monthly check. For more, see http://blogger.uncleleosden.com/2007/05/how-to-retire-without-saving.html.

Attitude. Perhaps the most important factor, but the hardest one to control, is how you view money and saving. If you look at them the right way, you'll do fine. Understand that you have a finite stream of income during your life. If you spend your money, you can't save it. It's gone forever, and you're left with the now diminished remainder of your finite stream of lifetime income. Saving is a choice, not a sacrifice. Money saved now builds security for the future. Because your lifetime income is finite, you can economize now or economize later. Consider that eating dog food in your old age probably won't be a high point of your life. Remember that savings generate returns that can be compounded, so they may increase your finite lifetime income. Save enough, and you'll hit a financial home run by compounding. (See http://blogger.uncleleosden.com/2009/09/if-you-love-compounding-compounding.html.) This isn't about being greedy in an unseemly way or living like a pauper during your working years. It's about common sense and living within your means. If you adopt the right attitude, you'll establish control over your finances, and that will give you a very good feeling.

Automate to Accumulate Wealth

To get to work on time, you probably set the alarm on your clock radio and let yourself hit the snooze button no more than three times. This automates the process of waking up. That makes you a more reliable, and therefore valuable, employee.

It's a good idea to automate the process of building wealth. Don't make saving something that you have to remember to do. If you automatically send part of each pay check into a retirement, investment, or savings account, the process of building wealth becomes much more reliable, and eventually, rewarding. You are paying yourself first. By making saving a priority, you are more likely to accumulate wealth.

Automating the wealth building process can be done a number of ways:

1. Payroll Deduction. Retirement accounts sponsored by your employer, such as a 401(k) account, will typically be funded through payroll deduction from your salary or wages. People who are 50 or over and want to make "catch up" contributions will have to separately authorize them; do so if you can afford them. You may also be able to buy other investments, such as U.S. Savings Bonds, through payroll deduction.

2. Automatic Transfers. You can arrange to have money automatically transferred from your checking account to another account at a specified time, such as the first of the month. The other account can be an IRA, a savings or money market account, an investment account, a mutual fund, a money market fund, or a variety of other accounts. It can be at a different financial institution than the one where you maintain your checking account. All you need to do is a little bit of paperwork (or online authorization), and the process will begin.

3. Extra Mortgage Payments. One way to reduce your housing costs is to prepay your mortgage bit by bit. In other words, if your mortgage payment is $3,000 a month, add a little bit more to each month's payment. Even an extra $100 or $200 a month is helpful. Your mortgage payment coupon may even include a line for adding an extra payment (but make sure you won't be charged a prepayment penalty). The extra payment will be used to reduce the principal balance of your mortgage. As a result, you'll repay the loan sooner and build equity in your house faster. Building equity matters. The real estate markets in many parts of the country are backsliding by day and by night. But extra mortgage payments remain a reliable way to build equity in your house. It doesn't matter that you might plan to live in this house only a few years. This method builds equity even if you stay in your current house only a short while.

One way to prepay your mortgage gradually is to make payments every two weeks. The amount of each biweekly payment would be half your monthly payment. You'd make 26 biweekly payments a year, or the equivalent of 13 month payments annually. You could repay the mortgage several years early this way and save tens of thousands of dollars or more. If you're interested in this idea, see if your bank will automatically deduct the payments from your checking account every two weeks. If not, you might have to pay a service company to make the biweekly payments, and that will involve fees that make the idea less attractive (although not necessarily a bad idea).

Once you routinize the process of building wealth, it will become largely painless. Even more important, it will become reliable. That takes you down the path toward champagne and caviar.


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