I mentioned at the beginning of the year that I had some pretty aggressive investing goals. I started off a little rough, then got a good stock that was working its way up and the market decided to take a dive. Just my luck.
All is not lost however, I didn’t panic and stuck with the stock and it has recovered enough for me to end my first quarter just in the black at 1.1%. Not the 10% I was looking for, but maybe this quarter.
investing, stock market, Stocks
I just read a post on MSN called How to make big money. It lists 11 strategies that, quite honestly, very few would even attempt and aren’t really realistic. Sure they could make you money, but seriously, Government Subsidies and Inheritance as the number one and two methods?
Instead, why not try becoming an entrepreneur and build a business around something you really love? You may or may not make big money, but it will be money you enjoyed making. Or perhaps invest some money and make it big over the long haul. Either way, the article isn’t particularly helpful.
Misc, money, Personal Finance
Retiring a millionaire always seems to be a popular goal. We want to retire comfortably and have plenty of money to do the things we want to do without any worries.
Common sense will tell you that starting early on savings it the key, but few realize why. Certainly you have heard that it takes money to make money. A basic understanding of compounded interest will show you that the money it takes from you personally can be relatively small. Why? Well, with any kind of interest bearing account, be it a mutual fund, index fund, pure stocks or other such methods, the money you invest is making money then gets put into making even more money.
Yes you probably do, so what does it take to actually make that million? Naturally it depends. The factors include the age at which you start, the age at which you want to retire and the average interest you expect to make over that time period. The accepted norm for the interest is 8%, which I personally think is the smallest you should accept.
You can take these numbers and plug them into a variety of calculators online to figure how much you need to save, but I’ll use a recent article from Kiplingers to give you a decent figure. Assuming you are starting from zero you need:
$286 if starting at age 25.
$671 if starting at age 35.
$1700 if starting at age 45.
The amount needed more than doubles for each 10 year period. If that isn’t a wake up call, well you probably won’t be a millionaire.
Now this doesn’t cover other retirement options like 401(k)s which if available to you will help out dramatically.
budget, Personal Finance, wealth
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