You can retire as Multi Millionaire with Low Salary. Read our article to find out how one can do that.
Let’s say you have got 3 million dollars. And imagine those three million dollars can buy you. You can own a Bugatti Chiron, about a million cups of coffee from branded café, or a six-figure retirement income. Owning a car that goes from zero to 60 miles per hour in less than three seconds or having a lifetime supply of coffee sound like nice options, but hopefully you agree that a comfortable retirement is the obvious choice of the three. And why not Everyone is fighting for their whole life for the sake of comfortable last days of life. Which is also famously known as retirement life.
And if you use A retirement savings calculator then it will tell you that to accumulate let say $3 million, you need to contribute $1,143 monthly for 40 years straight at a 7% annual return. That contribution level is roughly 27% of your $50,000 salary and probably several times what you can afford to save currently. Thankfully, retirement calculators don’t tell you the whole story. You do have options to secure a carefree, financially independent retirement. Here are three to consider.
1) Use your employer match:
First thing you can do is to Use your employer match
First of all, let’s understand employer match. So basically, Employer matching of your 401(k) contributions means that your employer contributes a certain amount to your retirement savings plan based on the amount of your own annual contribution. That means if you contribute more your employer will also add more amount in its contribution.
It’s a no-brainer to lean on your employer to supplement your own contributions. Matching contributions average 3.5% of annual compensation, but they can be as high as 6%. Assuming a salary of $50,000, that adds $145 to $250 to your 401(k) monthly — taking that target contribution of $1,143 monthly down below $1,000.
Matching contributions are easy money, assuming you can stick with the job for long enough to be fully vested in those employer-funded contributions. Most employers have a gradual vesting schedule, which gives you a higher percentage of ownership over time. An example would be a vesting schedule that allocates 20% of matching contributions to you for each year you remain on the job. After five years, you’d be fully vested. On the other hand, if you change jobs after one year, you can only take 20% of your matching contributions with you. At a 3.5% match rate for your $50,000 salary, the 20% equates to $350. You’d have to forfeit the remaining $1,400.
That may not seem like much, but you’ll also give up decades of earnings on that $1,400. Over 40 years, those earnings could total about $20,000. The takeaways? Use your employer match, but also stick around long enough to be fully vested.
2) Invest aggressively when you are young:
Second option you can do is to invest aggressively when you are young.
So, it is again Another strategy available to you in the early years of saving is investing aggressively. To be clear, aggressive does not mean reckless. It does not mean you should rush to invest. And first thing that should be made clear to you is “to invest” this phrase does not mean that you should only invest in stock market. But you do have other options too like real-estate or any other area which will help your investment to grow in order to cop up with inflation. And as far as stock market investment is considered, don’t buy positions you don’t understand or try to turn quick profits by trading often. Instead, load up on equity funds rather than fixed income. And why I am saying this because quick profits often lead you to trading but buying equity can lead you to investment. And in my previous videos also I have explained why investment is better than trading. I will repeat it here again. That trading includes booking quick profits. But as every coin has two sides that also mean that you may end up booking quick losses too. And this is because of short-term fluctuations that most of the stock market player does not understand. And those people also include warren buffet and Charlie Munger. They hate trading. Read their any book they publicly accept that trading or short-term profit booking is more like gambling and less like long-term growth opportunity. And when you think about retirement it’s pretty obvious that you will have to think about investing and not trading. And investing also increases the probability of winning as in that you are first analyzing the fundamentals of company and then decide whether to invest in that stock or not.
And along with this Your personal risk tolerance that means how much risk you are ready to take, timeline, and investing expertise should dictate the type and composition of the funds you select. An easy option is a low-cost S&P 500 index fund, which gives you exposure to the largest publicly traded companies in the U.S. S&P 500 includes top 500 companies that means it is sure that S&P 500 will always be increasing no matter what happens as if any company includes in that index starts underperforming then it is removes and the next best company is chosen to include in S&P 500. You might also consider a smaller position in a fund that’s focused on small- or mid-cap companies. The smaller players can grow faster than their larger counterparts, but they’re also more volatile. The same goes for emerging markets. Like space companies and renewable energy companies. This is because already established market has already proven that they are something on which people can trust because they have got products that people in the world are already using in higher numbers. But, emerging market is quite new to people and people are still doubtful on these types of markets as there may be chance that it will fall quickly.
You can’t predict today what your future returns will be under any investment strategy. But know that small increases in returns can lead to big changes in your balance over time. And keep adding small small amount to your million-dollar goal also helps the magic of compound to show its effect. As an example, adjusting your return from 7% to 7.5% lowers the total contribution needed to reach $3 million from $1,143 to $984. If you’re also earning $145 in matching contributions, that takes your portion down to $839 monthly.
3) Learn How To Save you Salary Hike:
Next thing you can do is whenever you get raise on salary try to bank or save some part of it.
An $839 monthly contribution is 20% of your salary, which is still probably out of reach. But all hope is not lost. You can still reach the $3 million goal by starting with a smaller contribution today. The trick is to bank any part of a raise that exceeds 2% of your salary from this day forward.
Here’s how it works. Let’s say you are contributing $5,000 annually to your 401(k) today. Next week, you get a 3% raise that increases your salary to $51,500. You can use the first 2% of that raise, or $1,000, to keep pace with inflation. Use the remaining $500 to increase your 401(k) contributions. After that first raise, you’ll be contributing $5,500 annually, or $458 a month. Over time, your annual contribution will rise to more than $2,000 monthly. Stick with it and you will reach the $3 million benchmark by age 65, assuming you are collecting 3.5% employer match and your funds are growing at 7% annually.
Or, rethink the number
If all of this feels way too limiting on your lifestyle today, then target a lower savings balance. If you plan to hold your $50,000-a-year lifestyle steady after you leave the workforce, you probably don’t need more than $1.5 million on hand anyway — or less if you have Social Security or another source of retirement income available. You can reach the $1.5 million benchmark in 40 years by tucking away 10% of your salary consistently and holding on to your employer match. But remember the main criteria is you should keep your lifestyle same after retiring.
There are some advantages to chasing an aggressive goal early on, though. The contributions you make in the first 10 or 20 years of your career stand to earn a lot more because they’ll be invested longer than contributions made later. And remember warren buffet made more than 50 billion dollars after his 50th birthday. And that didn’t happen overnight. He was continuously investing in stocks since his 20’s. And even though doing all of this you don’t reach your goal to earn 3 million dollars and even though Those earnings may not buy you a Bugatti Chiron, but they could set you up for something even better — financial independence and early retirement. And this is exactly what every human being wants. So, start making small steps to increase your probability to winning and belief in yourself in these journeys. Always try to follow your plan.