Big and small minds alike have thought and quipped about retirement. The retirement quotes below aren’t all meant to be profound, but each has a lesson or two for us — and they can help us attain more comfortable retirements.
Here are a few retirement quotes that are not only pithy, but helpful.
“The best time to start thinking about your retirement is before the boss does.”
– Author unknown
This is a key concept, in several ways. For one thing, many Americans end up retiring before they expected to — either because they were let go or due to illness or some other development in their life. According to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, 41% of Americans working at age 58 are likely to retire earlier than they expected to. What can you do to avoid being forced to retire you’re ready? Well, if you save aggressively and invest effectively for retirement, starting it early will hurt less. You might also take better care of your health, to reduce your chance of being unable to work anytime soon. Above all, don’t keep putting off thinking about and saving for retirement.
“The question isn’t at what age I want to retire — it’s at what income.”
— attributed to George Foreman
This is brilliant, as it reminds us that we have the power to make our retirements more or less comfortable, depending on how well we save and invest for retirement. You might use an online calculator to help you figure out how much you can save by the time you expect to retire. By tweaking the amount you plan to save each year, how long your money can grow, and the average annual growth rate you expect, you can arrive at a workable plan. For example, if you have $50,000 in retirement accounts now and can sock away $8,000 per year, aiming to average 8% in annual growth, you can end up with more than $600,000 in 20 years. If you plan to withdraw about 4% of that annually in retirement, that will give you $24,000 annually, a meaningful sum, especially when combined with Social Security.
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