Perhaps you find yourself in a peculiar place. Despite the fact that you know you should have been busy with saving/investing your hard earned cash long ago, you haven’t. And now you know that you’re in a pickle, not really geared-up for those unexpected events in life.
Here are 4 of the top reasons why most people neglect investing for their future:
- I just didn’t make it a priority to save money.
- I’m in a low paying job and couldn’t spare the money.
- I’ve got too much debt and couldn’t contribute to retirement because of it.
- I’ve always lived paycheck to paycheck.
Perhaps the main culprit and the most frequent reason is too much debt and lack of making things a priority. Most of the people that seek help with their finances in their later years have probably been battling debt for decades without making any headway. Debt can be an unrelenting cycle throughout life, causing one to live from paycheck to paycheck. Some get into to their 40’s, 50’s, or 60’s and suddenly realize that old age is creeping up fast and they are seriously unprepared for it financially.
Is it ever too late to start investing?
The short answer is, no! The long answer is, no, no, no! Although, it can be very difficult convincing an individual to change long-term habits and situations that got them to a current situation in the first place. When it comes down to it, turning around a gloomy situation in your life, e.g. a lack of any savings/investment funds, takes plenty of work, commitment, and time to get the job done. The key lies in not meditating on the past or what could have been. All you have to do is to keep your head up and to start right away.
So what are the steps you must take to get on with it?
Start now.
Whether it was procrastination or some other bad occasions that kept your savings off track up to this point, it's not too late to get started. Make savings a priority. Thus, open a savings/investment account now. There’s a vast amount of options available to you within South Africa, on Fincheck you can take a look at and compare Unit Trusts and Savings accounts.
Automate it.
One problem that many people struggle with is the discipline to put money into their savings consistently. The best way to overcome this to have the money automatically deducted from your bank account every month by debit order. This way you don’t have to think about it. You can automate, forget about it, and later be very pleasantly surprised!
Set goals.
When you have goals in mind for how much you want in your investment/retirement account at a certain age, it can light a fire under your brain’s butt and motivate you to get your retirement savings in gear. Figure out how much you want to have by a certain age, and divide that by the number of months until you reach that age. That will give you a rough estimate of how much you’ll need to put into a retirement account every month until you reach your goal. Luckily, compounding interest will also work in your favour!
The key takeaway.
You may not be able to grow your money as much as you would have if you had started young, but starting now will get you the maximum amount of time for growth to happen.
So don’t put it off any longer, your future self will thank you!
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