What would you do with 2.00? Buy a new car or maybe a fancy house? How about taking an exotic trip? Probably not with $2.00? Now, suppose you had $200,000? That sounds more like it, but where can you get $200,000? I'd like to show you how investing can make that possible. So today let's take a look at investing for our future, first by understanding the need for investing early, secondly by looking as the various retirement investment plans, next by seeing how we can find the money to start saving and finally, by looking at how investing today can allow us to retire in financial comfort.Not many of us think of retirement in a financial way. By not thinking of investing in retirement you ...view middle of the document...
The easiest retirement plan is the 401K. This type of plan is offered through most employers. According to Kiplinger's 12 Steps to a Worry Free Retirement, 1995 "The 401K is a super deal for building retirement wealth." The money invested in this plan comes directly from your paycheck as pre-tax dollars. According to the 2000 IRS Tax Laws an individual can save up to $10,500 per year in pre-tax dollars. The nicest thing about the 401K is the savings in automatic. You set the amount and the rest is done for you. You can adjust the amount saved according to your income. Another bonus to this type of plan is that many employers will also make contributions to your account up to a certain amount. That is like free money. Another type of plan is an Individual Retirement Account or IRA. This plan allows you to save up to $2,000 per year tax free. The money you save is invested along with other people's money in stocks. You can contribute as little at $250.00 per year and increase the savings as your salary increases. The last investment I'd like to mention is the Mutual Fund. Like the IRA, Mutual Funds combine your money with other peoples. Mutual Funds however can be withdrawn prior to retirement while IRA's cannot. According to www.BlueCollarDollar.com, updated March 2001, "the risks of investing in Mutual Funds are less than investing in one or two individual stocks because of the diversity of the stocks offered." Like the 401K you can have an amount automatically withdrawn from your bank account on a monthly basis for investing.Understanding some of the various saving plans let's visualize how easy it is and how little we need to begin saving. If you are between 18-25 years old you need...