The Key to Saving for Retirement

Contributing to your Retirement Fund - Biddeford Savings Bank

If you have a plan you are twice as likely to actually save for retirement.

I hope I have convinced you that it is wise to save for retirement – and to begin now and keep saving faithfully until you do retire.  Fewer than half of Americans have done the math to determine what level of income they will need in retirement while over half have less than $25,000 set aside for retirement.

With the average time in retirement at 20 years it is clear that $25,000 won’t get you very far.  Once you start paying attention to retirement planning you will find a number of online resources to assist you.

Here are just a few government sites:

Other options are Motley Fool, Yahoo Finance, Fidelity, Charles Schwab and the list goes on.

All of these sites can help you plan for retirement.  At ssa.gov you can also get a good estimate of what your expected Social Security income will be.  This is an important component of your retirement income but it is highly unlikely that you would want to live on just Social Security.

Once you have a plan, be sure to revisit it twice a year – check in to see if you are making the desired progress towards your goals and to see if your investment choices are still good ones.  If you create a good plan, stick with it, and review it periodically, you will give yourself the best possible retirement.

Good luck!