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When I was a competitive athlete, I was subjected to this horrible, yet necessary practice used to measure training capacity for the weight room. This twice-a-year ritual was my least favorite time, because the process was both painful and discouraging. Why was it discouraging? Well, the closer I got to maximum load, the more it hurt.
Also, every completed lift meant that in about two minutes, I was getting under an even less comfortable experience in a wild hunt to find failure.
Don’t get me wrong! I loved finding out how far I’d come for all my efforts and measuring my progress. But, finding a way to stay encouraged in a system that only gets harder the longer you’re there takes some serious grit.
Most Americans are in just such a state all the time though. Given the role time plays in creating preferred outcomes, not having a plan for saving, growing and protecting money for your future goals is very much a scenario that only gets harder the longer you stay there. Currently, nearly 8 in 10 Americans say that they’re living paycheck to paycheck. Living paycheck to paycheck all too often means a lack of savings for the future.
But what might freedom from that system of financial insecurity look like at various stages of life? If a 25-year-old man decides to start saving for retirement, he only has to save $178/month to have a million dollars saved by age 67 assuming a 9% interest rate average over that time. For the 45-year-old, $1,212/mo is required to achieve the same goal. For the 55-year-old, the damage is $3,880/mo.
The longer we avoid writing down our goals and actively moving to achieve them, the greater the effort is required to do so, and eventually we hit failure.
The effort required to get on track toward our goals is more than we can manage.
Now, one could make the argument that at a certain point, saving money alone is not going to cut it. The road to creating positive cash flow in retirement requires a bit more creativity. I’d say to the person, I agree that adding a passive income solution to your portfolio is not only brilliant, but for most people necessary.
If you’d like to learn more about your options, don’t waste a bunch of time and money trying to figure out what is readily available to you. Hit me up on social and secure an invite to my next online event. Then, send at least 3 friends so we can all get better clarity on how to go from the typical American experience to the exceptional American dream!
If you’ve thought of making a plan, don’t hold yourself back. It doesn’t have to cost you anything but your time and your imagination, so don’t wait.
Kelechukwu “Chu” Oparah is a Licensed Financial Professional Serving your Dayton Community. For more content, Chu is on Instagram @chuoparah.