If you lie awake at night, worried that you're not saving enough for retirement, you're in good company. An Allianz Life retirement study found that 64% of Americans worry more about running out of money than dying, and 62% say they're not saving as much for retirement as they would like.
In other words, building a nest egg is not as easy as some may lead you to believe, and you may have to get creative. While there are many ways to save money, some are more Draconian than others and are difficult to stick with.
Here are three ideas that are doable and may encourage you enough to come up with your own saving techniques.
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1. Do some (nearly) painless trimming
The truth is, you could severely cut your budget by buying fruit just before it goes bad and leaving your thermostat set to 79 all summer, but why take drastic action you're unlikely to stick with?
Instead, scan your monthly budget (if you don't have one, now's the time to put one together). What you're looking for are expenses you can cut without feeling deprived. For example, if you're paying for a gym membership or home exercise program that you haven't used in a year, cancel it. If you have subscriptions you can live without -- including grooming boxes, makeup deliveries, or streaming channels you rarely visit -- cancel them.
If you occasionally forget to pay a bill and get hit with penalties, make sure all your monthly bills are set to auto-pay so they're paid even when you're busy.
In the event you spend more than you intend when you're out with friends, find a workaround. For example, if you normally go out to eat three times a week, cut back to once or twice. If you're spending money at clubs, plan at-home events with your friends, like movie or game nights.
2. Increase income in a way you can enjoy
Side hustles are a great way to bring in extra cash, especially when you're saving for something important, like retirement. However, choosing a side hustle you enjoy will make your life a little more fun.
For example, if you're a math whiz, offer online math tutoring. If you spent years as a dancer, apply for a part-time job at a dance studio. If art has always been your thing, get serious about it and sell your work online. Whether that's cooking, speaking a foreign language, or whittling wood, use it to make money.
3. Get serious about saving
It's easy to convince yourself that you can't contribute to a 401(k) or IRA, or that you don't have enough money to increase your savings. Remember that 401(k)s and IRAs are tax-deferred investments, meaning you don't pay taxes on the money until you withdraw it during retirement.
Let's say you work for a company that sponsors a retirement plan and you decide to contribute $200 each month. There are two reasons it may not hurt as much as you expect:
- Since it's tax-deferred, that's $200 less that you pay taxes on right now.
- Because the money is automatically taken from your paycheck, you're not likely to miss it much after the first month or two.
And if your employer offers to match any portion of your contribution, contribute at least that much. Imagine if you contribute 3% of your salary each month and your employer matches 3%. That's a 6% contribution to your retirement fund with only half the sacrifice coming from you.
