[Music] well hey you guys so I was recently thinking about a specific group of people that I hear on the ramsy show a lot because we talk about retirement investing and how important it is and how you need to be investing 15% of your income once you're debt-free and have a fully funded emergency fund but I also really feel for people because we get calls you know with people in their 50s or their 60s and they have not saved anything for retirement and in 20 24 people that are in their 50s 60s that's either a boomer or even Gen X so today I'm talking specifically to Gen X out there and those above so you Boomers as well but to figure out hey is it still possible for you to retire because the truth is it is but it may look a little different than what you think and this also would apply if you are at the point where you're not investing yet for retirement and maybe you are a millennial or even a genzer out there but I think it's important to understand hey this is what the future looks like and you could learn a lot from that so be sure you guys to hit that subscribe button though before we jump in if you want to hear more content like this all right step one if you are a gen xer or a baby boomer when it comes to retirement is knowing what your current situation looks like and I think this idea of retirement if you don't feel like you have enough can be really scary and what happens is fear can just magnify so much in our heads so getting actual numbers down is really really important and some people people don't even know like I think I have this in my 401k I don't even know if I have a Roth IRA I think I funded it a few years ago but I'm not sure like getting all of your numbers is really key and then plugging them in somewhere to at least get this overall view of when it comes to your numbers and your situation and one of the best ways to do that is with an investment calculator and I always use the Ramsay calculator because again it it's obviously very accurate but I think it's easy to change up some of these numbers to get some hypothetical situations so for instance let's just say you're 60 years old and you're making $70,000 a year and if you invested 15% of your income that's $875 a month for the next 10 years with a 10% rate of return then you'll have about $180,000 in retirement now if you increase your retirement age to 72 and raise your contributions by 5% you'll have more like $322,000 saved which again you want to retire as soon as possible so is that at a great retirement age 72 no but also people are doing it to get more money in their retirement which is really really important so is it possible to retire later yes it is now here's another example let's say you're 52 and you and your spouse have recently become aners and combined you make $100,000 a year if you have nothing safe for retirement but maybe you have a paid-off home and you're in good health and you both have accepted yeah we'll probably work later into our 60s and you get to this point that you're like okay let's invest plus $1,500 a month for the next 15 years at 10% rate of return well that means you would have $622,000 at the age of 67 and then if you work till 70 you'd have just over $900,000 again and this hypothetical situation also a paid off home so you put all that together your assets and you're a net worth millionaire which is awesome so if you get the idea of kind of taking inventory of your current situation and playing around with the numbers you can actually kind of get to this place of facts and not emotion to help you better plan all right step two for my gen xers is to get yourself in a position where you can actually invest so it's hard to do 15% of your income again when you have a lot of debt payments you don't have money saved and all of that so getting yourself with a firm Financial Foundation is not only going to help you longterm when it comes to retirement but it's going to help you more in the present so getting out of debt is so important so I would actually some people would yell at me for this pause investing in order to pay off your debt faster and people are getting it out of debt in 18 to 24 months using the debt snowball method where you pay off the smallest debt first and work your way up and then once that's paid off get an emergency fund in place of 3 to 6 months of expenses so all of that is really really key again to have that strong foundation so then you can put even more towards retirement all right step three is to remember that the 15% rule will catch you up over time if you pause investing to tackle getting out of debt and getting an emergency fund in place because the truth is some people just match up to their 401K so they're like oh yeah I'm just you know investing 4% or 5% or 6% so 15% is crushing it you guys so putting that much towards it is going to help you in the future all right step four is to shift your expectations so again if you are a gen xer or a boomer and you are behind and you don't have a lot of money saved for retirement number one just remember it is never too late okay you can do this you have to start where you are and again putting some of these rules in place is going to help you get there faster but the truth is that the expectations of oh yeah I'm going to just retire at 59 and a half may not be realistic and that's okay and and I think that's life too I think there's you know harder expectations that we have to lower in life so whether it's like the type of house that you're wanting to buy or even when it comes to getting married or having kids like there are things in life that happen and you're like man I could have made different decisions but I'm not going to just sit there and wallow in the past what am I going to do today and so shifting those expectations is a part of life and the truth is if you don't have a lot saved right now and you are in your 50s or 60s that expectation of how much you'll have and even the age you retire may have to shift a little those expectations but that doesn't mean that you can't retire I really really believe when you get strategic about this you can do it and then step five part of that strategy is sitting down with a professional so again working with somebody that again has your overall Financial picture and this is you know everything from Social Security if you have a pension a family inheritance house value estate planning uh taxes I mean there's so much that an that an actual professional an investment professional can sit down run some scenarios run numbers and what's really key about these people is a lot of them don't even really get into the nitty-gritty of like oh the specific funds you know you can have your overall strategy which is key but they're looking at you as the whole person and so having someone with that highlevel visual of your financial situation is really really wise and so if you're looking for someone make sure to check out smart Fester Pro I can leave a link in the description to find the professional in your area that you can sit down with because again sitting down with somebody that knows what they're doing in this area is so so key okay so is it possible for older generations to retire yes it is and again it may take some unique strategy but it's never too late so leave this video with a lot of hope you gen xers and your Boomers out there cuz it is possible and just to know the biggest turnaround that you're going to have in your financial situation is up to you it is you you're the one that's going to change the course of your future financially from this day forward and you can do this all right if you found this episode helpful make sure to share it with a friend or a relative who may need help in this area and if you want to dive deeper into investing make sure to check out my episode investing for total beginners by clicking here or using the link into the show notes if you are listening on podcast all right you guys remember to take control of your money and create a life you love
