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Planning to Meet Your Retirement Goals

Perhaps you're one of the lucky few whose current retirement resources are greater than their anticipated needs. Good for you! You might consider shifting some of those resources to your current needs, or making some more adventurous investment decisions.

For the rest of us, the task will be planning to make up the shortfall between what we'll have and what we'll need. You might start by deciding to decrease your needs: retire later, live on less, or do without the block-long Winnebago.

Establish a personal budget that lets you set aside some money from your current expenses and invest it in your future.

Or you might decide to act now to increase your income when you retire. Establish a personal budget that lets you set aside some money from your current expenses and invest it in your future. There are lots of good reasons for doing so.

Tax Savings

The US government has established a number of ways to save and invest for your retirement that allow you to protect your income and earnings from taxes. The tax-deferred savings program, such as a 401(k) plan or 403(b) plan, that your employer may offer is an example: you can invest your contributions in a variety of investment choices, and both your contributions and the earnings on your investments are tax-free until you take them out. IRAs and tax-deferred annuities are other examples of retirement investments that reduce the tax bite.

The Miracle of Compounding

When you invest your funds, your money earns money, and then that money earns money, and then—well, you get the idea. As an example, $1,000 invested pre-tax in a tax-deferred savings plan that pays a relatively modest 8 percent interest rate will grow to a value of over $21,000 in 40 years. The sooner you start building for retirement, the less you will have to take out of your current spending, and the more you will have to live on later.

In short, the sooner you put your retirement plan in place, the more likely it will be that your retirement will be all that you want it to be, and the less likely that economic worries will take some of the gleam off your golden years.