OK, we’ve spoken about compound returns before, which is basically interest on interest.
Today you invest £100, it grows at 10% in a year you’ve got £110 then the year after you get an extra 1 by reinvesting the 10 (or the profit.) - that’s compound returns.
And the longer you invest for on a regular basis, say for your retirement, the more you’re gonna invest and the longer it has to gain compound returns. Which means the bigger pot and therefore the bigger pension. Simple maths.
So the earlier you start putting money away religiously on a regular basis the better, makes sense? Great.
On the flip side. It’s never too late, providing, you actually start. I talk about your earnings window - this is how many pay days you have until you want to stop working.
So in 10 years, you have 120 pay days left. If you leave it for 6 months you’ve got 114 pay days left and so on and so forth. So the message is, do something now, it’s never too late to start today.
And the whole reason for this for this article, is that I received an email this morning from someone Ive spoken to that basically said "I can’t hit my target so what’s the point" (Yeah... I know)
The guy’s in his early 50s, he’s been working for 30 years at various high positioned well paid jobs, not saved a bean and has all the excuses under the sun:
Divorce "she took half" - half of nothings not a lot.
"I need to pay Maintenance" - they’re your kids, you created them so you’re responsible for them
"Property market crashed" 1. When? And 2. you don’t own any properties!?
When in reality all he’s done, is spent too much money. For his entire life, that’s it.
Yet this guy wants to stop working in 10 years on a similar sort of income to what he’s on now. Yet his answer, is pretty much the same answer what he’s had for the past 30 years, do nothing.
I think some people need a reality check. We need to realise that nobody is coming to take care of us. The Government aint gonna look after you, especially if you’ve been an expat for donkeys years because you’ve not been paying into the system, so why should they prop you up because you’ve been a prat with your money?
Cos where do you think that Government money comes from? Tax payers, it’s your neighbours, your family members, your butcher, baker, candlestick maker that have paid into the system all their life. Why should they have to pay to support you because you pissed everything up the wall?
And do you really want your kids to have that burden, all because you weren't responsible enough to take of yourself? Which one of you’s supposed to look after the other?
Anyway rant over, so what can you do?
Well
1. Grow up
2. Work out how many pay days you’ve got left until you want to stop working and what you want at that point.
3. Start putting a percentage of your salary away, on a regular basis, but do it religiously , and make it automated, there’s this amazing little tool banks use called a standing order, and it’s made more millionaires than what warren Buffet has.
Thanks for reading,
Commentaires