The Federal Reserve reports that 60 percent of working adults do not believe they're on track with their retirement savings, while 25 percent of working adults have no retirement savings at all.
Without proper retirement savings, however, you could be forced to live a much lower quality of life than you're accustomed to living and, in the worst of cases, not be able to take care of yourself in an emergency, let alone cover your daily needs.
By avoiding these retirement mistakes you can place yourself among the elite 40 percent of working adults who feel properly prepared for retirement.
1. FAILING TO HAVE A FINANCIAL PLAN
To have the retirement you want to have, you need to know well ahead of time how you want it to look. Without this key bit of knowledge, you have no way of knowing how much you need to support that vision and, therefore, how to make sure you have it when you’ll need it.
In short, you need to plan for retirement. You can’t just let it happen willy-nilly and hope it’ll all work out.
Do that, and you’re liable to find yourself in a less-than-desirable living situation with no clue how you got there or how to get out of it. Don’t wait until cashing your final paycheck to think about retirement.
Instead, start asking yourself some pivotal questions:
- Where do you want to live?
- How do you want to spend your time?
- How much longer do you want to keep working?