If there are three things that all of us strive to save for it’s a home, our children’s education and our retirement.
And when it comes to retirement, while we’re pretty sure that you’ve read that it’s best to start saving up as early as possible, the reality is that sometimes life’s demands distract us and we look up and realize that we’re a lot closer to retirement age and a lot further from having the amount of money that we planned to have for it.
The good news is that there are some things that you can start doing now that will help to get you back on track. We’ve enclosed five of those steps for you below:
Add more to your 401(K)
It’s not uncommon to get an annual raise. If you are up for one in the next few months, something that you can do is login to your 401(K) account and either split or put all of your raise into your retirement plan.
That way, your take-home pay is not affected and you’ll still be increasing your retirement fund in the process.
Do some investments
Something else that you can do is look into investments. The good news about this option is that there are all kinds for you to choose from.
You can purchase some stocks and bonds, you can buy a few properties (that you can either renovate and sell at a higher price or rent out to tenants) or you can do what is known as peer-to-peer lending, which consists of lending money over the internet. Although the risks are high, it is considered to be a respectable business.
Work a part-time job
If you’d like to make up for some of the time that you feel you may have lost when it comes to preparing for your retirement, something you can do is get a part-time job.
Thanks to the internet, there are plenty of telecommute positions that you can work from the convenience of your own home. Some websites that feature work-at-home jobs include Craigslist, Freelance and Upwork and many others.
Catch-up on your contributions
If you’re someone who is over the age of 50, understandably, you may be concerned about having enough time to get a substantial amount of money into your retirement account before you reach 65.
One approach that many people in your same predicament tend to do is “play catch-up” on their 401(K) or Roth IRA. In most cases, people 50 and over are able to put an extra $5,500 into their 401(K) and an additional $1,000 into their IRA.
Related: Advantages of a 403(b) Retirement Plan
Match your 401(K)
When it comes to saving up for retirement, something that a company like DepositAccounts.com would probably recommend is checking to see if your employer has a 401(K) match-up offer.
The process is quite simple. For every dollar that you put into your 401(K), your employer will put in a dollar too, which automatically doubles your account.