Retire with peace of mind by making sacrifices at a young age and living a disciplined lifestyle. Once you get in the habit of saving and investing, you can expect to start increasing your personal wealth. Due diligence and regular inspections of your finances should ensure a promising retirement for you.
The first thing I did was to determine what kind of retirement I wanted. This helped me to determine how much money I would need to make it happen. I started by calculating my daily expenses and increasing them every year of my life expectancy, a trick I learned from my grandfather and www.aarp.com. Next I determined what my portfolio should look like. From then on I checked on my investments regularly, just to see how they were doing, but a re-evaluation was not really necessary unless I intended to add, delete, or change my investments.
I was fortunate to learn a little about investing from my grandfather at an early age. He did not know a lot, but he did know the importance of saving money and not to just dabble in the stock market by jumping around from stock to stock. I filled in the blanks with my own research by asking experts and reading financial articles. All types of portfolios agree that the amount of risk I am willing to take, diversification of investments, and saving money are essential to having money for retirement, and that my age would determine how this would change over time.
Risk is a part of all investments. As a younger person in my twenties, I was willing to take a greater risks. I was in a position to buy into several different companies that seemed sound to me. Stocks are more high-risk, but I made sure that I could afford to lose what I invested, that my livelihood did not depend on the performance of my investments. Some provided steady income, and some only showed a return when their value increased. I took Warren Buffett’s advice and did not invest in any company that I did not understand, and I slept great at night by avoiding those “hot tips” from other investors.
Preparing for the worst was the best way for me to diversify my portfolio. I looked to www.forbes.com and www.fool.com to tell me about different types of investments, and turned to www.investopedia.com for specific definitions of terms when I needed it. Together they gave me free and solid advice and information. According to these sources, my investments should be designed to counter any losses that I may experience with any one of them, and provide other sources of revenue. I attempted to stabilize my portfolio by investing about 50 % of it in domestic and foreign exchanges, 40% in fixed-income securities, and the rest in cash.
By investing in domestic and foreign exchanges, I relied on different economies that usually were not directly connected to one another, like the United States and companies in other countries that do not depend on U.S. economy to thrive. I also chose to invest in real estate through mutual funds. I invested with others in office buildings, apartments, shopping malls, and warehouses in the United States and abroad.
My fixed-income securities were government bonds. I was practically guaranteed thousands of dollars in increase on tens of thousands of dollars of investments. I got a percentage of the investment in increase, plus the original investment of the bond.
I also learned from www.time. com/money that certain credit cards are better for loans, financing, bonus points, etc. I use them to purchase necessities like groceries and gasoline, utilities, etc., and pay them off every month. I save myself finance charges and consistently build my credit.
My cash assets were in CDs and savings accounts. I took advantage of a company-matched 401(K) and maximized my IRA, which allowed me to save a sizable amount to put in my personal savings or invest in my fixed-income securities. My grandfather was also wise enough to leave me money as a beneficiary of his life insurance policy. This allowed me to collect the full amount of my benefits without taxes or fees incurring. This is a part of the money I invested in my portfolio.
By the time I retired, my portfolio remained diversified, but reflected a shift in dynamics to roughly 20% in the exchanges, 45% in fixed-income securities, and the rest in cash. I was able to live in retirement instead of having to work to supplement it.