A key focus of my blog is Financial Literacy/Money. A component to learning how to win with money is saving it. While it may sound simple, it is not easy for everyone to do. The following contributed post is entitled, Maximize Your Personal Savings With These 5 Easy Strategies.
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In an uncertain economy, having a robust personal savings strategy is more critical than ever. Whether you’re saving for a down payment on a new home, an emergency fund, or simply cushioning your finances, the right savings strategy can make all the difference. The good news is that you don’t have to be a financial wizard to maximize your personal savings; with just a few simple tweaks to your approach, you can make your money work harder for you. So here are some easy strategies that you can implement to help grow your personal savings and create a more secure financial future for yourself and your loved ones.
The first step in maximizing your personal savings has a well-structured budget in place. Creating and committing to a budget allows you to see exactly where your money is going each month and identify areas where you can cut back on expenses. Start by tracking your income and expenses diligently for a month or two, and then categorize your spending into fixed and variable expenses. This will give you a clear understanding of your spending habits and help you make informed decisions on where to cut back and save more.
2) Automate Your Savings
One of the easiest ways to commit to your savings goals is to automate the process so that you’re consistently contributing to your savings account without even having to think about it. Most banks and financial institutions offer automatic transfers from your checking account to your savings account. Set up a recurring transfer for a specific amount each month or every paycheck, depending on your pay schedule, to ensure that a portion of your income is consistently going towards your savings goals without requiring any additional effort from you.
3) Find A High-Yield Savings Account
Another crucial aspect of maximizing your savings is ensuring that your money is stored in an account offering competitive interest rates. Traditional savings accounts often offer very low-interest rates, meaning your hard-earned money barely grows over time. That’s where high-yield savings accounts from Evolve Bank & Trust come into play. These accounts offer significantly higher interest rates than traditional savings accounts, allowing your money to grow faster.
4) Pay Off High-Interest Debt
Another essential aspect of maximizing your personal savings is to pay off any high-interest debt you may have. High-interest debt, such as credit card debt, can significantly impede your ability to save by consuming a large portion of your monthly income. By focusing on paying off this debt as quickly as possible, you’ll free up more of your income to go toward your savings while also improving your overall financial health.
5) Take Advantage Of Discounts And Cash-Back Opportunities
Finally, don’t underestimate the power of saving on everyday expenses. Look for opportunities to utilize discounts, coupons, and cash-back offers on the purchases you’re already making. For example, many credit cards offer cash-back rewards on categories such as groceries, gas, and dining, which can add up over time. Furthermore, shopping during sales or using coupon codes online can also significantly cut down on your expenses, leaving you with more money to put toward your personal savings goals.
Maximizing your personal savings is easier than you might think, and it starts by implementing the strategies mentioned in this blog post. By sticking to a budget, automating your savings, finding a high-yield savings account, paying off high-interest debt, and taking advantage of discounts and cash-back opportunities, you can create a more secure financial future for yourself and your loved ones.
A key focus of my blog is Financial Literacy/Money. A key aspect of this subject area is understanding the difference investing and saving. Both are very important terms which can actually complement the other. Understanding the two further can change lives. The following contributed post is entitled, The Difference Between Investing And Saving.
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Investing and saving are two fantastic options for anyone looking to be smart with their money. At a base level, they both serve the same purpose; you want to put money aside, with the aim of having more in the future.
But, some fundamental differences show both options have their own pros and cons.
It’s easy for anyone to open a savings account and start saving money. You don’t need much financial know-how at all, just a brief consultation with a financial advisor at your bank will give you everything you need to know. Essentially, you open an account, put as much money as you want in there, and the interest rate sees it grow year by year.
With investing, you have something far more complex. There are loads of different ways to invest, and each option also contains more choices as well. Take the stock market; you have loads of different things to invest in, from futures to options – and everything in between. Then, you have to look at things like option historical data, previous sales, current market trends, and so on. It’s so incredibly complex, making it hard for the average person to get involved. Typically, you need to take in a lot of knowledge to get to grips with stock market investing. Bear in mind, this is just one example, you also have property investment, forex – the list goes on and on. Saving is simple, but investing is definitely very complicated.
When you put money in a savings account, it will increase in value over time. This is due to interest rates, but the catch is that interest rates are usually horrible. In essence, this means you don’t get outstanding returns, and you have to keep your account open for many years before you see anything substantial.
So, saving returns are restricted by interest rates, but investment returns aren’t. Your return on investment varies depending on the market conditions. In some cases, you can earn colossal returns after just a few months – it depends on the investment. If you were to compare savings and investments with regards to their returns, then savings definitely come out second best.
The flip side of this is that investing carries more risks. With a savings account, you haven’t really got any risks at all. The money sits there collecting interest, and you don’t have to worry about anything.
With investing, there are so many variables. A market crash can make your investment plummet in value – or the company you’ve invested shares in could close down. Companies are always at risk of closing, and even if you think you are hedging your bets by checking the Caterpillar shares prices, a company as big as Caterpillar is not immune from any adverse conditions. There is always the notion of risk when you are investing. It’s always worth bearing this in mind, and if you plan on investing in a business, you may want to invest in a company with more sway and notoriety, but this is by no means a “sure thing”. If you invest in property and the property market experiences a dip, then you’re in trouble. The point is that you may get better returns, but you’re taking a bigger risk.
Ultimately, either option is an effective way of using your money. They’re both far better than reckless spending! The best way to summarize the differences is that investing is riskier, more complicated, but can grant higher rewards. Generally speaking, it’s a smart idea to try both ideas if you want to do more with your money.
“I saw many retirement commercials during my young adult life. They were usually run during sporting events. I wasn’t thinking about my older years at the time, which seemed too far away to imagine.”
Note. Like my Net Worth piece, the subject matter of this blog post is not new. It has been known for years by those who’ve learned about it in their families, learned about its concepts in business school, or have discovered it on their own. It’s a discussion from my personal perspective which I think is worth visiting. Also, while this is a ‘money’ topic, I’m discussing it from a ‘scholarly’ perspective. I’m not rendering financial advice where I’m telling readers what they should do. In the spirit of the first principle of my blog, Creating Ecosystems of Success, I’m simply introducing a concept and discussing why it’s important for the lay person, so they can make their own life choices.
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A Savings Crisis
At the beginning of this week, a mentor emailed me telling me that April is “Financial Literacy Month”. He asked me if I was writing anything on this subject. I shared with him that I already had something coming out of the pipeline regarding a topic we’d coincidentally discussed at length. He also shared an article with me entitled, There is a savings crisis and many Americans don’t know how to fix it. Here’s how. It serves as the perfect jumping off point for my financial offering for the month of April 2019.
Thinking About Retiring
I saw many retirement commercials during my young adult life. They were usually run during sporting events. I wasn’t thinking about my older years at the time, which seemed too far away to imagine. The commercials I remember the most are those by Dean Witter where, in the black and white film, he states, “We measure success one investor at a time!”
My next thoughts of saving for retirement came courtesy of Robert T. Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad Poor Dad. I believe it was in his book, Conspiracy of the Rich. In the book he described the “Employee Retirement Income Security Act” (ERISA) enacted by President Richard Nixon. The new law made employees responsible for their own retirement savings, converting most everyone over from ‘Defined Benefit’ (DB) plans (pensions), to ‘Defined Contribution’ (DC) plans. That was during my postdoctoral fellowship and I think I set up a ‘Roth IRA’ at my bank, shortly after reading the book.
Saving in My TSP
It wasn’t until I started working in the federal government that I seriously started thinking about retirement, but it wasn’t due to my own volition. It was due to a friend I was dating at the time. I’ll facetiously say that the relationship didn’t last, but her asking me about whether I started saving in my government “Thrift Savings Plan” (TSP) was a major contribution on her part. She caused me to think about retirement in the relationship context.
I realized that I might be a liability as a partner if I didn’t have my own retirement ‘nest egg’ which in some respects is true. (See my Mother’s Day 2017 blog post to get a feel for the potential dangers of two people settling down when only one has savings and the other one doesn’t.) In terms of relationships, are money and resources everything? No, but they count for a lot and are worth pondering and discussing ahead of time!
Whose Responsibility is Retirement Savings?
At this point I’m going to transition and point out that in the financial world, there are different rules for different people. I first learned this after reading the above-mentioned Robert Kiyosaki’s second book, Cash Flow Quadrant, which discussed the differences between: Employees, Self-Employed Individuals, Business Owners, and finally, Investors. To make a long story short, in addition to having their own unique ‘tax laws’, employees by nature have a ‘working life’, and they must figure out how they’re going to survive once their working life is over. That’s if they’ve thought about it.
Some of my relatives are beneficiaries of the DB plans described above, but they’re “Baby Boomers”. My father is a retired educator who started teaching in the late 1980s. My uncle, a retired firefighter, started his career around that time as well. I could be wrong, but I think that most municipal workers such as the police officers and firefighters receive Defined Benefit pensions. Most teachers now must contribute to a Defined Contribution plan. If I’m wrong, please leave a comment below. What if you’re responsible for your own retirement savings? Read on.
Saving Less Thank Five Percent
“If you’re not saving the maximum amount so that you’re getting the government’s five percent ‘Matching Contribution’, you’re leaving money on the table!” The first person to point this out to me was a counselor at work who was helping me with relationship issues with the above-mentioned lady friend. By the way, this anonymous friend inspired me to write my piece entitled, The difference between being Cheap and Frugal, so she deserves a lot of credit in terms of inspiring some of my content.
I’d told the counselor that she’d called me ‘cheap’ on multiple occasions, a label which hurt me at the time. One of his immediate questions was about whether I was saving into my retirement account to get my government match. When I told him that I was saving less than the five percent, he responded that I wasn’t taking full advantage of what the government was offering me. Also getting the match should’ve been first and foremost in my mind.
Matching Contributions
So, what is a Matching Contribution and why is it important? I’m glad you asked. A Matching Contribution is a dollar amount that your employer matches in relation to what you’re saving in your retirement account. For the federal government, it’s five percent, and it differs from employer to employer. Some don’t match at all. The point is that if you’re not contributing anything, you’re not going to get anything, or maybe the bare minimum. If your employer matches what you’re put in, you’re effectively getting free money.
Your employer match makes it easier to get to the holy annual retirement threshold of 15% and beyond. If you’re consistently saving five percent, and your employer is matching that with their five percent, you’re already at ten percent for the year. At that point you must come up with another five percent or more to get to 15%. If you don’t know where you’ll get that extra five percent, look at your personal budget. I wrote a piece on that recently.
If your employer doesn’t match your contribution, should you still save for your retirement? Absolutely. First, if you’re going to work until your 60 years old or more, you do want something for yourself, or else you’ll have to keep working, or someone will have to take care of you.
Other Benefits
Second, from experience, your retirement savings contributes to your ‘Net Worth’ and this translates into other areas such as qualifying for mortgages. Most lenders want to see that you can save money and something they consider qualifying you for a mortgage is your Net Worth – the difference between your assets and liabilities. I wrote a piece on that as well.
When refinancing my mortgage two years ago, I realized that that my lender actually had a form entitled, ‘Net Worth’. Calculating it quarterly was routine for me by then. I’d already built up an ‘Emergency Fund’ and I’d started methodically saving into my retirement account, so I knew I was in good shape. This was in stark contrast to when I barely qualified for my first mortgage due to being too ‘overleveraged’ (carrying too much debt) ten years earlier. See my post on Dave Ramsey’s ‘Debt Snowball’, to see how I dug out of my own debt-hole.
Other Keys to Retiring
Speaking of debt, as an employee living off one paycheck, budgeting, controlling costs, and minimizing debt are all keys to being able to build a retirement nest egg. You want to be able to create enough ‘Cash Flow’ so that you don’t miss the amount going into your retirement account every pay period. Furthermore, you don’t want to be in position to have to raid or borrow against your retirement savings should an emergency arise – both of which could hurt you.
Speaking of Dave Ramsey’s group, a good book to read is Retire Inspired by Chris Hogan. It gives a nice discussion about what retirement is and why it’s important, which brings me to my closing point. If we all know we’re going to age, why doesn’t everyone save for their retirement? I think the answer is a lack of awareness and a lack of understanding of why it’s important.
Where Do You Learn?
“You should’ve learned about this when you were 18 years old!” My mentor scowled at me after we finished talking about my retirement savings and why I hadn’t maximized it a couple of years ago. It stung for a moment, but I laughed about it inside afterwards. It would’ve been nice to have been educated on the subject 20 years earlier, but honestly those in my ecosystem back in Buffalo just weren’t talking about investments or retirement savings.
One could argue that the change from DB-pension plans and DC plans needs to be better explained in the school system so that all kids get exposure to these concepts early. I do agree with that, but the reality is that if these things aren’t discussed in your family circle, you must figure them out on your own somehow.
I don’t want to make this racial, but over the years I’ve heard stories of Jewish families regularly and openly talking about money and investments at family gatherings. It’s not race-specific as my mentor’s family which is black, regularly engages in these types of discussions. What does your family talk about at gatherings?
Financial Vocabulary Words
The financial world has a language all its own. When you’re entering your first job fresh out of school, being told to start your retirement benefits and then hearing all the esoteric terms can literally sound like ‘gibberish’. It can be daunting like talking to your surgeon or your auto mechanic. Unless you understand why it’s important to start saving for your later years, you’ll likely neglect it and use your precious resources on other things, but hopefully not for too long, as it’s difficult to catch up beyond a certain age.
Why is it hard to catch up? This brings us to the “Law of Compounding Interest” of which time is a major component. I wrote a piece on that as well which I’m sure you’d enjoy, but the quick version is that the earlier you start your retirement savings, the more time they have to grow and multiply. Furthermore, depending on the nature of your plan, you could be missing out on significant annual tax savings which add up over the years.
The last important piece is figuring out what your retirement savings should be ‘allocated’ in. This is a completely different but related subject. The point is though, that you must have something to allocate first and foremost.
Other Recommended Readings
Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you enjoyed it, you might also enjoy:
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