There are certainly a lot of different retirement strategies out there. Regardless of your age, income level, or current level of savings, you’re likely to have access to multiple strategies to try to help you reach your goals.
And there’s no shortage of investment advice on what types of investments are best for you. Just pick up a copy of virtually any personal finance magazine and you’ll read about a wide range of options, some of which may even appear to be in direct conflict with one another.
But perhaps the biggest factor that will contribute to you reaching your retirement goals is common across all of these options. And it remains something of a secret even though it’s so easy to do. The secret?
Be consistent with your retirement savings.
By that we mean that if you save as much as you can each year, and you do so year in and year out, then you stand a very good chance of reaching your goals. When you are more consistent with your retirement savings, your choice of investments becomes less important. You won’t have to chase high yielding investments in an effort to boost the value of your nest egg because your account balance will grow over time merely by choosing investments
When you invest consistently, then over long periods of time your investment choices become less of a factor in determining how much you’ll accumulate. This isn’t to say that you should disregard the process of trying to choose your investments wisely, and select assets that meet your risk tolerance and other financial circumstances. Rather, it simply means that your research and analysis of your various investment possibilities shouldn’t overshadow the priority to put money aside in the first place.
In other words, your primary goal should be to contribute the maximum amount to your self-directed IRA every year, and your efforts should be focused on that first and foremost. After you’ve done the work to save as much as the IRS allows, then you can put the time and effort into figuring out how best to put that money to work.
You’ve probably seen the examples before. Looking at several different case studies of hypothetical investors — one who invests each year at the market low, one who invests at the beginning of the year, and one who is unlucky enough to invest at the top of the market — the results are surprising.
Over a period of several decades, the individual who is unfortunate enough to make their investments at the market peak each year has a smaller nest egg than the other two investors, but not by as great of a margin as you might think. And, more importantly, that bad market timer still has accumulated significantly more than an individual who didn’t save as much, or who simply contributed the same amounts to a bank account or other cash equivalent savings vehicle.