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Start Investing Now Before It Is Too Late!
By: Dr. Drew Henry
Accept it many of you are now spending on bills to pay for what you have wanted
for years and now you can finally afford it. The last thing you will thing about
is an investment for your retirement. It is your choice whether to have fun with
spending money now but suffer when you get older or inverse! Take some advice
from those with a little more experience: Start investing early in your career.
Start from day one and you will never miss that money you’re setting aside. If
your company has available a 401-K or a TSP program, jump on the band wagon
immediately. If you don’t have these programs at your disposal, you can still
start an IRA and the concepts stated here are applicable as well.
I can guarantee that it really does it make a difference when you start
contributing. It is important to invest in your retirement account early in your
career for two reasons. First, if you’re fortunate to receive matching
contributions, you don't want to miss out on those added contributions that are
a significant part of your retirement benefit. Second, the longer contributions
stay in your account, the more you stand to gain. Your money makes money in the
form of earnings, and those earnings in turn make money, and so on. This is what
is known as the "miracle of compounding." As money grows in your account over
time, the proportion resulting from earnings will become larger compared to the
proportion resulting from contributions.
The size of your account balance is going to depend on how much you (and your
company if they match funds up to a certain percentage) contribute to your
account and how your account grows as a result of earnings on your investments.
To get an idea of what your retirement account could be in the future, look at
the following projections.
Think this way. Assume that you are an employee eligible for organizational
contributions, that you are earning $28,000 each year, and that you receive no
future salary increases. You choose to save 5 percent of basic pay each pay
period; therefore you receive total organizational contributions of 5 percent.
The growth projections below are for an assumed annual rate of return of 7
percent on your investments.
After five years your account balance would be almost $17,000; after ten years
your balance would increase to $40,000; and after contributing for twenty years,
your account would have a balance of $122,000. Clearly your balance would
continue to increase each year. If you contributed for forty years, which is
fathomable if you start a job at 23 and want to retire at age 63, your account
balance would be $615,000. That’s over half a million dollars folks! Just from
contributing 5% of your income from the day you start work!
Can this number convince you to start saving money now?
About the Author:
Dr. Drew Henry maintains a number of websites about banking, including a href="#" onClick="window.location.href='http://www.internetbankingsecrets.info/'; return false;">Internet Banking
, Investment Bank
, and Investment Banking
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