Interview With The Megacast: Growing Your Retirement Account

When I think about being able to retire... I imagine all the time I can spend with my family, the vacations we will get to go on, the free time... 

The free time. 

I know right now the market isn't looking too hot. We have really high interest rates to help combat inflation, everything is feeling super expensive lately, and stocks are down. 

I don't want you to look at the current market and stress about the future. I want to help you plan for the future. Plan for those vacations. Being on the beach or mountain and spending time with your family. The hobbies you'll get to enjoy once you have the time. Imagine your ideal years of relaxation...

Planning now will help you to have a comfortable nest egg for retirement so you can ride the future waves on inflation in the market. If you're already retired, it's not time to despair. There are things you can do to safeguard your account now. 

A lot of the changes that are happening now are affecting those already in retirement. If you are still saving for retirement, you may not be getting hit as hard with inflation as someone that is already retired. Why is that? 

So many people retire with a planned budget, giving them an amount to live off each month. When we think about inflation and prices of basic goods going up, that set amount is dwindling faster because it's more expensive to buy items right now.

During the pandemic, many stocks soared - as did our investment accounts. But as things start to calm down, stocks are going back to their normal values. This ultimately means your investment account should be right around where it was pre-pandemic, or maybe even up a little. 

For those of you that aren't in retirement yet, there is time for the cost of items to come down. But if you're already in retirement, you may be feeling that extra hit in income when everything is much more expensive right now.

There is always an opportunity to jump into the stock market and take control of your financial future. 

If you are in retirement, you want to make sure you have some disposable income you can potentially use to make a better return than your current retirement account. You also want to make sure you know how to do that.

The good news about all of this is inflation will not last forever. In the meantime, you may need to cut back on things such as travelling or maybe not purchase a vehicle right now. 

You could also consider picking up a part time job to help supplement your retirement fund while inflation is high too. 

The last thing you'd want to do is risk any money that may be earmarked for retirement that you could potentially lose. 

For those of you that are about to retire, there's a lot of uncertainty. Do you have enough saved? How long are these inflated prices going to stay around for?

The easiest solution would be to wait to retire until the market calms down or until you have enough funds in your account to cover the extra costs.  

Meeting with a financial advisor is also helpful. They can address your current savings rate and see if you need to increase your percentage. If you're saving 20% of your income, maybe you need to boost it to 25%. 

Right now is also a good time to pick up stock in great companies that have sold off recently. 

If you're able to put more money in the market and pick up stocks at a low price for investment and push your retirement back a year or two, there's a good chance you'll have a better retirement nest egg.

It is a good time to get involved in the market, and it can be a safe time to buy because prices are not at an all-time high. 

We think it's a safe time to buy when stocks are going up. But stocks do not go up forever... so if you're buying at the stocks all-time high price, you're less likely to make more. Buying stocks at their lowest price gives you more room to make money. 

With the recession and inflation, it's a good time to invest because we are able to get stock at a lower price. Amazon and Google's stock prices have been cut in half lately. It's unlikely they'll be cut in half again... can you imagine Google stock down 75%? 

It's also unlikely Amazon or Google will go down to $0 - this would mean they are going out of business. Buying now, it's less likely the stocks will go lower but highly likely the stocks will go higher once the inflation period is over. 

At the end of the day, retirement is a game plan. 30 or 60 days of the market being up or down won't change the plan you've made. Your retirement is a result of the planning you've been doing for the last 15-30 years. 

Now that inflation and layoffs are here, there aren't too many things you can change after 30 years of planning in just 6-12 months. Sometimes the best modification is just changing your lifestyle and spending habits if you didn't account for extra costs due to inflation. 

When you're starting to prepare for retirement, especially if you're younger and think, "retirement is so far away" - start now.

There are retirement calculators you can use online to figure out how much you'll need to retire with. What is your lifestyle going to be like? Do you want to spend time travelling? Is your house paid off? Do you need to save for repairs?

You want to find out what amount you'll need to have each month for retirement and then work backward. From that monthly amount, we can figure out how much in total we need to have to retire comfortably. 

The amount needed may be eye opening... but it will help put you on a plan for the next 15, 20, or 30 years until retirement to make sure you can enjoy your later years. 

Thinking and planning for retirement now is so important, even if it feels so far away. It's better to get ahead of the game and start to plan, than wait until it's too late. 

If you're looking to invest in the market but aren't sure how, check us out at Power Trades University to get started on learning how to invest.

The market may seem volatile and unpredictable right now, but it will calm down. Interest rates will go down. Inflation will go down too.

We need to keep focus on our end game: retirement. Instead of worrying about what's happening in the market right now, we should instead focus on planning. 

Plan for your retirement lifestyle. Plan for the vacations, the hobbies, the time... the sooner you start to plan, the less scary it feels. Working with a retirement calculator and seeing you may need to save $1,000,000 to retire comfortably is overwhelming. But it doesn't need to be. 

By starting now and breaking down the amount you need, it can be achievable. Your retirement can reflect the lifestyle you want.