Earlier this week I brought you two tips to help prepare for your financial future. Today I will bring you two more tips to get you to retirement faster. I think we all understand that you cannot prepare for your future with a blindfold on walking around in the dark and expecting someone to take you by the hand and lead you where you need to go…that being said, this blog is as close as you can get. All you have to do is read the tips I lay out for you, implement them in your own life and watch as magic happens!

Okay, so maybe no magic, it’s hard work living and preparing for your future at the same time. Sometimes you’ll look at your budget and you won’t see a penny you can squeeze for savings.

Those horror stories about old people eating cat or dog food to survive, that’s no myth. That’s what will happen if you don’t get ready for your future. You won’t ALWAYS have tomorrow or next week, but that extra $25 bucks that you were going to spend getting latte’s this week at Starbucks, or getting energy drinks or energy bars, or whatever your vice is, save it. Now, onward to our future plans…

Step Three…
Pay off those credit cards! There is NO reason to have your credit cards maxed out. Unless you’re recovering from an emergency, that is. We all get credit cards with the best of intentions, and now it’s time to realize that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Don’t carry them in your wallet anymore, starting today. Unless you can pay it off every month, you should not be using your credit card as if you can.

Credit cards are a well disguised circular logic kind of trap, most of the time we don’t read the fine print, and while Congress is trying to make the credit card companies be more honest in their practices, they sidestep lawmakers by making “concessions” about their practices, curtail all their fees for a while and when lawmakers get busy with something else, they’ll be back.

Fourth… Contribute to an IRA, 401K, CD’s, government bonds… something! If you don’t put money away now, protected money, you’ll be left reminiscing over Ovaltine laced with Metamucil and PB & J wishing you had paid attention to what everyone was telling you. This is the time to take care of yourself. Not tomorrow. the beauty of the 401K is that most employers will match your contribution to a certain percentage, at my last job it was up to 5%, that’s a hefty sum when you add the two. It’s a cut from your paycheck now, yes, and that’s hard to swallow, but don’t you want good days when you’re 60.

Once you have your finances in order, you can feel better about your situation. You can feel like you have control over your future, you won’t have such a feeling of bewilderment when you think of your retirement years.
Now, today is my birthday and I’m taking the rest of the day off. Everyone have a fantastic Thursday.

Click Here for Part One.
Click Here for Part Three.
Click here for Part Four.