Essential Steps to Start Saving for a Secure Retirement

 Welcome to the episode. So today I'm sharing all my thoughts about savings and how that ties into retirement. The question a lot of people are asking, how can I make sure I will have enough money in retirement? How will I know I've saved enough? How will I know I won't outspend it? These are questions that are plaguing a lot of us. Having us worry, having us maybe even not actually saving in the moment. If that is you, and you're questioning whether you will have enough, but you're not actively saving right now, you've got to quit worrying, contemplating the best strategy, and start saving. If you aren't saving, you're not going to make any progress. So where I'm going to tell you to immediately start without doing any other action step in the moment. If you're not saving and you have a retirement account with an employer and they match it, go do the match. Three, four, five, six percent essentially is not going to hurt your bottom dollar, but then you will be grabbing that free money from your employer. If they are matching three percent, you're now contributing six percent to your retirement fund. But we get so caught up into thinking about how and where and why that we just need to do. That is what I'm challenging you. If you are not saving, go do that. If you don't have an employer match, Continue listening. We'll give you some steps a little bit later on. All of my savings episodes really have the highest number of downloads. Those are the ones consumed. Those are the ones, you know, I think that's an area most individuals really struggle with, you know, whether they are actively planning and preparing for retirement or if they're just trying to get through life. Saving is crucial. And in this episode, I'm going to share with you why I believe saving and learning to save is the number one habit, money skill, whatever you want to call it, that you need. If you master that, Managing your money becomes so much easier. I have a download of all my episodes with all of the links available for you to go and listen to, as we're not covering all of those things in this episode. If you have questions, go check that out. Make sure you download that and you can go and learn A lot more about savings, different accounts, different approaches, different strategies. That is there for you to go and download. This is an area, like I said, I see a lot of people struggle. A lot of people come and work some with, you know, working with me. They say I, I'm not able to save. It's just really sometimes an abstract concept to try and save. It's my second approach. We get make sure we get the budgeting done that there will help us make sure we're not over saving. And I'll share more a little bit about that in a minute. But you know, really defining what it is that you're able to save, making sure you're covering everything else. Because if you're not, if you're not defining that number, you can cause other problems. The other day I was listening to a podcast interview. And this was a host interviewing a financial coach and she said, and it just stuck with me as I was preparing this episode, she says, I help you cut expenses to save money. And I was like, okay, okay. This is not my approach. I, I believe myself as a coach, that cutting without process can be very detrimental. What I mean by that is. You know, I have, I do have clients that come and say, I need you to tell me where to quit spending and to cut. If I tell you, okay, you have five streaming services and you only need one, you're going to be shoved into a scarcity mindset. Like, well, I can't get another one. She told me I can't. Or, you know, if you cut that because you're like, okay, you should only have one. It's really detrimental. My approach is different in that we begin getting you to manage your money. We begin building what future goals you're wanting. Are you wanting to, you know, really shave off three years, five years and get retire earlier? Are you needing to pay down debt? What is it that you truly desire? As we define that and as we create you the money management system. That natural process of eliminating some expenses just happens. And it's so much easier to have that shift of, Oh, okay, if I take this and instead of doing this, I put it towards this, I am going to see, you know, leaps and bounds, and so it's a much more abundant mindset. Instead of cutting and reverting back, we're just directing our money differently. But I do promise, if you were to work with me, as all of my clients that have come before, In session one, they walk away knowing how much they can save every single month. And you can experience this as well, either through my Financial Freedom Accelerator or my Retirement Strategy Intensive. Both of those links are down in the show notes if you want to go and read more about that and see what that cost is. It just helps to be able to create a budget that defines at a savings amount. and you're running, you're running to be able to reach your goals. But I really just wanted to share that my process is we get your current money going on and we, you know, what do you desire? What do you need changed? What do you want different about what you're experiencing today? And that just naturally has you shifting and directing money in a different way. It's very, very powerful. I watch it with, with each and every one of my clients, and I'm just amazed at how quickly they can find it within themselves to start making these shifts. All right, deeper into my belief that being able to save learning to save is the number one habit or skill that will help you simplify the concept of saving money. It's powerful. As I share these next eight Things and maybe you can think of some others, but you know, this is what saving can do for you besides just quote saving. The first one is very obvious, and I think most of us know being able to save creates an emergency fund, you know, and those sinking funds, those things when we need to have money when things happen, it's just crucial to be able to have, you know, liquid savings set aside for needs and emergencies. The second thing is crucial for most individuals is being able to save helps us pay down debt, helps us be able to pay more than the minimum and really get in there and get that debt repayment happening quicker and quicker. Being able to save helps build awareness around your spending. This is that natural shift I was talking about. You are starting to save. You know what you're saving for because that is crucial. And then you begin seeing where your money is being spent. And very naturally you might be like, Oh, I need that to go to savings instead. And so just the awareness is keen. You're start looking at your money differently and you know, your saving ability, your saving skill can take off. The next one, if you're still in that phase and preparing your kids for college, you know, this is something some parents choose to do and some do not, but being able to save is the only way you're able to do that, knowing how much to save. You can let them know I can help with books, or I can help with one year, or I can help with all four years, but that comes from the skill of saving, knowing how much you're able to put for them to be able to, you know, support them on their, you know, on their journey through college. This one is, Affects a lot of people but you know, more industries than others is having money set aside, have savings can help soften the effect of job loss. Number one, you're not expending all of your money, so you don't need to have that quote amount. But secondly, if you have a reserve, you're able to take a little bit of time to find that job, find that better job and not just have to hurry and jump because you have no money, you have no resources. It really helps soften the effects in that it gives you a little more time. It, it softens your landing, you know, losing a job is not easy, but being able to still make your commitments and take that time to search and find a better job hopefully is what that can do for you. The next one is huge and it can be huge even into retirement. Buffer for times of inflation. We have seen inflation crazy over the last couple of years. And if you've heard me share before, My savings was my buffer when my natural gas bill rose by 60 a month, just out of the blue. Being retired, you're on a quote, fixed income. And so what do you do? Well, you make that shift from your savings. I won't be able to travel as quickly as I wanted or someplace, you know, as fancy, or I may not be able to buy as many gifts for individuals, or I may have to cut back on how much I spend. These are the shifts you can make as you save, and then you buffer for those times. And I know this was a struggle for a lot of people. You know, inflation affected us. How were you going to cover the cost of groceries when you're not buying anything different? You shift it from your savings. And while it's not fun, It makes it so it happens and it's not, it's not increasing your debt. It's not increasing those credit card limits and balances. And the last one, this one, seven and eight, I'm putting together because they do go hand in hand and it's how you happen, how you have it is that it prepares you for retirement. You need to know how to save to be able to reach retirement. And you need to know how to save to build your wealth. And wealth can be defined any which way. But really learning how to save is an important skill. We don't need to really learn how to pay off debt, we have to save that first. Coming back to jumping in and saving and that's why in my first sessions of any of my programs, that bucket of savings is identified on session one. And then from there, we apply strategy, we apply how to direct that money and what it's going to do and how it's going to support us and how it's going to get to your goals that you really, really, really want. I was working with a client who was worried about. you know, saving enough and where she was going to save and how it was going to amount to the dollar amount she kept being told by individuals. Just going to leave it at that. She wasn't saving. She wasn't saving. And just like her, if you're in that situation and maybe you're like, I just don't know if this is going to work. And so you quit saving, or maybe you haven't contributed more. Don't overcomplicate saving. You don't need to know how to invest this amount yet, if you're worried about this place where you're putting your money, is it going to grow to the dollar amount you need? That's step three, four, and five. You're not even making step one happen. And that is crucial to even try to get three, four, and five to happen. What I want you to do is get comfortable with creating savings. Every single month, you know, find that amount, create it, hold it. And what I mean by hold it is just put it in a savings account. It's not going to hurt to wait two, three, four months while you're in this process. It'll make sense in just one moment. And just get comfortable with creating savings. Don't feel pressured like you need to throw that into an investment yet, because you need to be able to prove to yourself that you can create these savings time and time again, being able to do so will limit your feeling of scarcity. You'll get to the point where you're like, yeah, this money continually is showing up every single month. I can count on it being right around this amount. And this feels good so you get to that. And while you're holding it, so we talked about that, creating the flow, you know, of that savings two, three, four months, while you are doing that in month two, three, and four, you're going to learn about your retirement account options. What is available through your employer? What does that look like? What is investment options look like outside of retirement accounts? You know, start learning and start educating yourself. Then. When you've proven that you can create the savings time and time and time again, You're now ready to put that money in the best place for you. Instead of jumping ahead to step three, four, and five, we've slowed the pace. We've taken step one. I can save, I can continually save. This money is showing up and I've learned, okay, these are my options. This one feels the best. It means this, this and this for me. And then I can contribute savings to that. And then from there you educate yourself on how do I make a growth? Is this the best thing? But it's already working for you. You're not stuck in, you know, where you should be doing step one and just trying to analyze how three, four, and five are going to line up and get you there. You've really got to take step one. Being able to create this flow of money each and every month is so crucial. And then you decide what direction it needs to go. So in my programs, I help clients build stability at home first. This is essential to building stability and limit the addition or the accumulation of debt. I worked with a client in spring, and she came to me and she says, I don't know what I'm doing. I just keep accumulating debt. And she's a budgeter. And I said, okay. We began working together. shared with her the strategy of building stability and looking for what's happening next and being prepared for those expenses that don't happen every month, but we are required to pay. These I'm talking are your car insurance, if it's every six months or 12 months, your property taxes, you know, there's lots of different expenses that only happen every three months or quarterly, you know. Every six months, whatever. It's just not a monthly reoccurrence and it gets us caught up. Take your time to use your savings to build those first. So that you're not always adding to your debt load while you're also trying to build up your retirement because you carry in that debt into retirement, there's a huge demand on how much money you actually need in retirement. I'm going to give you your two action steps today. If you weren't the person who isn't saving that was action step one, truly, but this one is step one. Determine your savings amount you have every month. Get yourself a budget, how much is left over, and then make this repeat. What is that number, what is that comfortable number that is showing up every single month? Then the next step, before you throw that into your retirement, is to determine what expenses are coming up in the next one to two months. You've got property taxes coming up. Do you have a vacation planned that you don't quite have money set aside for? There's all of these things that we are like, oh I committed to this and I forgot and then because we haven't built the savings we're turning to our credit cards or some other form of debt and so being able to balance savings and debt is just not working. Get those expenses covered and then determine how much is left over from that to be able to support your retirement goals. Again, you've got to prove to yourself that you can save that amount every month. Then you can go out and get you some strategy. Take that first step. Take it slow. Make sure you are like, yes, I can do this. Yes, this is working. And I know we want to rush through, but money is a marathon and not a sprint. And taking a couple months to make sure things are working before we're jumping ahead to the next step is very crucial for that solid, you know, foundation to be able to make progress even greater. Sure. If what I've talked about in this episode is of any interest to you, book your complimentary retirement vision session today so that you can begin proving to yourself that you can save every single month. During that 30 minute call, I can support you in better understanding. what savings, how savings happens in both of the programs I mentioned earlier. So be sure to book that call. That's the first step. Let's jump on and discuss what it entails even beyond just being able to save. To recap what we discussed in today's episode, We basically said you don't need to have Step 3 solved before taking action. In fact, it's probably stalemating you and stalling you out. And we need to just take our time. Ensure that we are solid with each and every step as we go forward. Go back to that saving. Know how much it is. And just keep that cadence going and then educate yourself while you're waiting to prove to yourself. Go take that first action step of defining your savings today, and we'll see you next week.