Some people find themselves so busy with their job, their kids, their home, and their life in general, they forget to make enough money to retire on. Suddenly they’re fifty or older and they realize they have more debt than they do savings. What to do?
Some of these folks will foolishly convince themselves that when their parents have passed, they will inherit a whole bunch of money. Perhaps this is true, but what they’re not anticipating is either being left out of the family will or being sued by a sibling who feels he isn’t getting the money he deserves. Sadly, the entire surviving family can end up at each other’s throats and in court.
When a family estate is being contested by one or more members it means you’ve entered probate proceedings. Says Attorney Referral Service, a probate attorney in Los Angeles, probate is the legal process which occurs when a person’s financial and legal affairs need to be settled after he’s died.
Think of probate as a necessary legal evil that happens when the assets of an estate do not meet the probate shortcuts available, and when heirs feel as though they are being cheated from receiving their proper inheritance. It can be both an emotional and time-consuming process that can take upwards of a year. If property is involved (which is very likely) the need for property Probate Specialists is high on the list, especially if there is a need to sell.
Of course, the better decision is not to wait to build your wealth until your parents are gone. It’s better to build your wealth now. And believe it or not, building wealth can happen at any age, even in your middle age years.
According to a recent report by New Retirement, most people believe to create great wealth, you need to start a hedge fund on Wall Street, or you need to be born into the right circumstances, or heck, you just need to get lucky.
While those things help, building wealth can occur by following just a few habits and best practices and being consistent about them. You can even build enough wealth for retirement in your 50s. In a word, it’s never too late.
Here’s how.
Don’t Allow Regrets to Determine Your Future
Many people just plain regret they didn’t begin investing at a younger age. In fact, they wished they didn’t do a lot of things that cost them tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars like bad investments and overspending on things you don’t really need. And don’t forget the divorces.
But one giant mistake you can make is allowing those regrets to determine the right course of action to take now. What’s the right way to deal with regret? Start right now with the one thing you’d wished you’d done in the past and go from there. Forget about the past and move on.
Middle Aged? It’s Never too Late to Create Wealth
Believe it or not, it’s not entirely unheard of for people to become millionaires after they’ve packed it in at work and retired.
Says Fidelity Investments, the average age people become millionaires is 59.3 for women and 58.5 for men.
The lesson? It’s never too late to create great wealth.
Invest Appropriately and with Regularity
It’s never enough to just save cash. You need your cash to work for you by investing in assets and funds. You might be shocked to learn that most Americans hold 58 percent of their investible assets in devaluating cash. What an awful idea, especially when you consider a $20 bill minted in 2000 is worth around $17 in 2023.
Say you’re about 45 years of age and realize you haven’t saved enough for your retirement. What should you do?
–Put $500 away per month starting now.
–Allocate 20 percent to a U.S. Treasury bond fund and 80 percent to an S&P 500 index fund.
You can assume a 6 percent average annual return.
If at age 45 you started at zero, you will have earned $226,719 by age 65 which translates into about 20,000 per year to live off of until your 85, not counting your social security check and other retirement benefits.
Start Playing Catch Up
New Retirement claims that “catch up contributions” are the IRS’s way of creating an easier path for savers who are in their middle age years (50 and up) so that they can save enough for retirement.
There’s a limit to how much you can put away in a tax-advantaged retirement account like 401(k)s and IRAs. But once you are 50 and over, you can make additional catch up contributions above the usual IRS limit.
Invest in Bitcoin
If you do your research, you will see that a digital asset like Bitcoin has realized an annual growth rate of 100 percent or more per year since its creation in 2008. The digital gold is considered by some one of the fastest ways to create real wealth in your middle age years.
But be warned, it is extremely volatile and not for the feint of heart. That’s why investing in Bitcoin is not for everyone. Again, do your research and decide for yourself if it’s right for you.
If you’ve reached your middle-aged years and realize you have a lot catching up to do when it comes to retirement savings, you’re not alone. But if you create a plan that contains many investments from stable gold to an IRA to Bitcoin, and stick with it, you just might find yourself a millionaire before turning the corner on 60.