I saw a great article recently which should come as a relief to people in their 40s, 50s and even 60s who are afraid they haven’t saved enough. (By the way, that’s almost everybody those ages.)
According to the Boston College Center for Retirement Research, the plan that most people have, which is saving steadily, but then catching up on their savings after they are done raising their kids, can work.
The catch is that you need to make a plan and then do it. It won’t just happen. When you have an idea of when your obligations for your kids will run out, figure out how much you need to accumulate and then figure a plan for how long it will take to do that.
It’s a little bit tricky (as all planning is) because we don’t know the future. We’re not always sure how much we’re going to make or how long we’ll be able to work. The best we can do is use what we know. The good thing is that a lot of people do that and it can work.
So if you get to your fifties or sixties and you haven’t saved that much and you’re really concerned with your retirement, you need to make that plan and make it work, but it can, and so it’s a good cause for optimism.
