Erin at Country Financial forwarded me a link to their latest survey.
Some key highlights?
While both men and women are worried about funding the retirement lifestyle they want, women have the additional worry that we'll run out of money completely (the bag lady syndrome – unique to women). One reason why E and I started this blog.
The other is that most of us know we should start investing early for retirement but we don't do anything about this. Unfortunately Country Financial didn't ask why there was this gap between good intentions and action. I suspect it is because retirement when you're 20 years old is far in the future and happy hour with buddies is only hours away.
That's why I don't talk a lot about retirement here. I don't think amassing a pile of cash to magically spend when you're 65 should be the goal. I prefer it to be having the ability to maintain a desired lifestyle at any age.
Last week I spent $2,000 buying a REIT paying me $200 a year. That's exactly how I thought about… $200 a year for the rest of my life. That buys me 2 nights at a hotel in Vegas. If I didn't spend that money this year, I could stay 4 nights next year. I see the reward within the year. Not 30 years from now.
When I first started investing, I'd invest $20 to earn $2 a year. Doesn’t sound like much, right? But that $2 will pay for a pain du chocolat in Paris every year for the rest of my life. It made investing that $20 so much easier.