How to Start Saving for Retirement at 40+

ShareThis

Perhaps you missed the memo urging you to start saving for retirement in your 20s or 30s. Or, if your situation is anything like mine, you started a family early or didn't find your passion in life until you were in your 30s.

Fortunately, it's not too late to start saving for retirement, because you're likely earning more today than you did a decade ago. You should be able to start saving now and still retire with a hefty nest egg. But first, you must take some essential steps.

1. Evaluate Your Savings Potential

Be realistic. Sure, we all wish we could save $5,000 per month, but can you actually achieve this based on your earnings and expenses? Remember, no savings amount is so small that it won't positively impact your goals. Save what you can, even if it's only a few hundred dollars per month. There are always ways to push your savings goals further by establishing a budget, creating a side business, downsizing your life, or all of the above.

2. Set a Financial Goal

How much do you need to retire? Start by taking an assessment of where you are financially and where you need to be. How much money do you need to live comfortably in retirement? Do you anticipate a need for $25,000, $50,000 per year, or maybe more? It may be that you have to postpone your retirement by a few years while you make a few adjustments and implement a quick-fix plan to catch up with your goals.

3. Create a Plan

Any good financial plan should begin with an honest assessment of your goals and the steps you'll take to get there. Try using a retirement calculator to determine how much you'll need to save each month in order to retire by your desired date.

You may be surprised by how much money you'll need to save, but don't fear the challenge. Consider working longer, finding a second income, or downsizing your lifestyle to enable progress toward your savings goals.

4. Bias Your Portfolio Towards Stocks

Because stocks offer higher returns than other, less aggressive investments, and you're playing a bit of catch-up, you will want to take on more risk by favoring these over bonds or other more conservative investments. As you grow nearer to retirement, you can take a more conservative investment approach.

5. Max-Out Retirement Accounts and Catch-Up Contributions

Max out your retirement accounts. Take full advantage of employer-sponsored accounts whether your employer offers match contributions, or not. If you don't already have one, open an Individual Retirement Account (IRA) and make the maximum contribution of $5,500. At retirement, given your account has been open at least five years, you can make withdrawals absolutely tax-free.

If you're over the age of 50, the government allows you to make catch-up contributions to your 401(k) or IRA plans, thus enabling you to save even more tax-deferred money for retirement.

6. Take Your Retirement Savings to New Heights

If you need to boost your savings in order to meet your goals, consider falling back on your business consulting skills, or any other skill you've developed throughout your career, and using it to create a second income. Freelancers, independent contractors, and small business owners can deduct many of their expenses.

There's also a retirement savings incentive for being self-employed. The self-employed can set-up retirement accounts that allow both employer and employee contributions. For 2015, annual plan contributions for a SEP-IRA is up to $52,000, SIMPLE IRA is up to $12,500 plus an employer contribution of 3% of income, and the Solo 401(k) is up to $53,000.

The IRS allows the self-employed to make contributions to both an IRA and 401(k). That's a lot of savings towards retirement.

What steps are you taking toward retirement savings after age 40?

Disclaimer: The links and mentions on this site may be affiliate links. But they do not affect the actual opinions and recommendations of the authors.

Wise Bread is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.


Guest's picture

Unfortunately, divorce ripped the guts out of my retirement nest egg. So I'm back to square one and the clock is ticking. A plan is crucial. Sometimes you need to think outside the box and redefine 'retirement' otherwise it can all be a bit too daunting.

Guest's picture
iKomrad

>Perhaps you missed the memo urging you to start saving for retirement in your 20s or >30s. Or, if your situation is anything like mine, you started a family early or didn't find >your passion in life until you were in your 30s.

Or you started investing right out of high school like I did, but you didn't have money management skills so every time there was an emergency, you pulled money our of retirement savings to pay for the emergency of the day.

I didn't learn about budgeting until I turned 40 thanks to finding Dave Ramsey via podcasts. Within a few months of someone actually teaching how to budget, I was in control of my money.It took years to clean up my mess, but I made more financial progress in the 5 years since then than I did in the 40 years previous.

I'm sad to think how much better things would be had anyone bother to teach me at a young age, I'd easily be a millionaire right now. But at least I learned in time to turn things around for retirement.