GirlsGuideTo | Day 18: Be Regular Through Retirement

Yesterday was a big day. If you followed your orders, you now have an IRA. This is huge! HUGE! Congratulations! This is NOT the order to procrastinate on, so if you skipped this step yesterday, turn around sister and prioritize your future today!

Learn:

As we saw in Day 16 (Monday), you get way more bang for your buck if you start contributing to your retirement account early, thanks to the power of compounding interest. As a result, we need you to contribute on a consistent schedule. If you wait to do it whenever you feel like you can afford it, then you’ll miss out on some of the best investment years of your life. Write your retirement contributions into your budget so that your money can work for you in the long run!

Figure out how much you can afford to contribute every month/year. LV’s Budget Tool can help you do this. Your goal is to contribute the full $5,000 each year for an IRA, which is about $415 each month. Don’t fret. If you can’t handle that much, contribute as much as you can—a minimum of $50. (That’s only the cost of two nice dinners or nights out.)
Action Time: 5 minutes

If you feel comfortable enough to contribute the full $5,000 at once, then we recommend doing so on January 1st in order to maximize the tax benefit. Decide if this approach is for you. Action Time: 1 minute

If you will contribute every month, set up automatic payments or recurring calendar reminders. If you will contribute once per year, set up reminders for January 1st of every year. (Plus, LearnVest plans to send you a reminder in a week to make sure you’ve contributed.)
Action Time: 2 minutes

Feel overwhelmed by these orders? We want to make it as easy as possible for you—especially when it comes to retirement! While we can’t give you specific investing advice, we can help walk you through setting up the retirement account that is right for you. E-mail us at feedback@learnvest.com if you want a little more hand-holding and we can set up a call.

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