How I Am Saving For Retirement

by Stacey Carroll, Contributing Writer

When I was in my 20s, I was not concerned about saving for my retirement. I figured I had forty-five years to work and worry about retirement, and that’s if I even got there. In my family, most of us work until the day we die. The only person I knew who was saving for retirement was my dad. My mom was not saving for retirement.

I didn’t start thinking about retirement until I entered my 30’s, and still then it wasn’t a fully formed thought. It was a question. Do I really want to work every day for the rest of my life? The answer was a fast no. How to start saving for retirement was a more complex question.

IRA CD

The first thing I did was open an IRA CD. My reasoning was simple. The interest earned was more than my savings account, and I only needed $100 dollars to open the account. The catch was that I had to auto draft $50 dollars into the CD every month. It wouldn’t amount to a lot of money by the end of the CD’s term, but it was a start.

401k

The next thing I signed up for was my company’s 401k. I decided to put 10% of my income into the 401k. My company would match it dollar per dollar until I reached a certain level. I never hit that level, and I never missed the 10% coming out of my check.

The only hindrance was what to do with the 401k when I left the company. I knew if I took a withdraw, I would lose the company match, and I would be taxed as if it were income. I didn’t want to do that. Luckily, I had my IRA CD. When the time came, I made two phone calls; one to the company managing the 401k, and one to my bank. The transition was seamless. The company managing my 401k wrote a check and mailed it to my bank. The money went into the IRA CD. I kept the match, and I didn’t get taxed.

Stocks

I lucked out when it came to stocks. I bought near the end of the 2008 crash, but I had been waiting for it. History told me that there would be a stock market crash during my lifetime. I took about a thousand dollars, and bought as many stocks as that would buy. In the time that I’ve owned them, they’ve gone up and down significantly, but I’m still ahead. I’ve still earned more money on my stocks than I would have had I left the money in my savings account.

My goal for retirement is to not touch this money until I need it for retirement. I know at this point that it is no where near what I need to retire. But, it is a start, and it is more money than my mom ever saved for her retirement.

Author Bio:

Stacey Carroll is the author of the thriller series - Avia.  She also authors the paranormal erotica series - The Blooddoll Factory. Stacey grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana. she went to college at Indiana State University (ISU) and graduated with a Bachelor's degree in aerospace in the professional pilot program. She has flown Cessna 152s, Cessna 172s, the Pipe Seneca and the King Air. She also graduated with a minor in computer science that specialized in web design.

She has always been interested in reading and writing, and the first book she was ever read was the Grimms Brother's Fairy tales. From the ages of 6 to 11, she read the Nancy Drew series. By the age of 11, she had graduated to Stephen King novels. A few of her favorites include Carrie, Tommyknockers, The Dark Tower Series up to book 3 (That's where it stopped in the late 80s/ early 90s), Pet Semetary, The Shining, Night Shift, The Stand, It, Cujo, Christine, The Eyes of the Dragon and Thinner (Richard Bachman). In her teen years, she moved on to Anne Rice and got through about four of those books before they degraded. If you've ever read Anne Rice, you know book 5 isn't readable. Stacey has read a couple Harry Potter books as she was introduced to them in the early 2000s, and she's never read or watched anything Twilight or 50 Shades. Sorry. I'm a vampire purist, and nothing needs to be said about the latter. You already know.

She is currently an author and freelance writer. She received an honorable mention in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine in 2008 for a short story entitled The Field. In 2014, she was published in 13 Stories by Us by MacKenzie Publishing.

Other books by Stacey

• AVIA II
• AVIA Memories

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