Saving money has always been a tough one for me. My wife would like to save money so we can retire comfortably and I agree. Problem comes in when deciding how and how much to save. Is future comfortability worth stretching a dime into a quarter today? Where does a person invest money where it may be available to you later in life? IRA’s? CD’s? HSA’s? Savings accounts? Or the ever volatile stock market? So many choices, so many different opinions. I will tell of the ways we have been able to save so far and hopeful goals of ours.
Auto-deduct
The best way for me to save so far is by auto-deducting money from my check so it is like it was never there to begin with. Teaching for 12 years, I deducted and the school matched a chunk of money each month and it has grown into a nice amount. Now owning our business and not teaching, I have been doing the same into an IRA account with a local finance planner. She invests the money into accounts and again, I don’t even realize the money per say is coming out of my check. I just adjust my budget according to what my take home is.
HSA-
We just established an HSA account that we are going to max out the total benefit each year. Everyone has medical expenses at some point in their life. We have quite a bit each year as my son has mild Cerbral Palsy and daughter has been dealing with sledge in her gullbladder. I think we have maxed out our deductible each year and having a pre-tax fund to draw from to pay for these expenses is a huge cost savings. Hopefully at some point it will be an account that starts growing if our medical expenses someday drop and then it can accumulate for future use because we all grow older every day. This is a great way to save some money right up front with expenses you are going to have anyways either now or in the future.
Savings accounts-
This is a tough one for me. I would love to be able to take a chunk of money and put it into a savings account each and every month that I would not touch. Unfortunately, we have always had more expenses that crop up each and every month due to this or that and have never been able to establish a fund yet. The plan of putting away money that we used to pay towards a car loan is gone since we bought a new minivan. The reason that this would be an ideal place to build money is because it is available to you for either unintended or intended expenses. Retirement accounts you can take out money but have to pay penalties and it is a bigger hassle. Problem is the fact that I can see I have the money so I then do not exercise the same type of restraint as if I did not have the money at all.
Property-
This is one that my father-in-law has always believed in. He has owned many different properties over the years and sometimes many at the same time. As a farmer, he owned quite a bit of property and that is where he began to formulate that thought process. The idea that land is generally increase in value over many years is a strong savings and investment plan. Same goes for a home or rental properties. If you can own them and pay them off relatively quickly, 15 years or less, then the value you can recoup from them is OK. Otherwise it will be tough to recoup the interest on the loan you took out for the home or land or rental property. The key is having money up front to put down and to pay the loan off as quick as possible. Strong arguments can be made about renting for cheaper and saving extra money for retirement instead of taking out a loan and paying a ton of interest. Someday, I sure hope, the business will be paid off along with our home and as long as we maintain it, it should be a nice chunk of money for future use.
So hopefully by the end of our working days, we will have saved enough that I can golf and my wife can travel as that is our future retirement interests. I am not sure I will love to travel, but maybe if there is a golf course near by I could be swayed. If not, I am not afraid to work and I am sure I can find a job I would enjoy working at in my later years.
Updates on prior posts… house is getting cleaned out, riding my indoor bike every day, and I have lost nearly 20 total pounds doing the whole 30. Figured out tomato based products cause major heartburn. Haven’t figure out whether or not it is gluten or dairy that causes my stomach to be upset. And I still love eggs. And love fruit more than I imagined I would.
