3 Creative Ways to Boost Your Retirement Savings
Saving 15% of your income for retirement is a worthy financial goal, but it's not easy to accomplish. The demands of day-to-day life can sometimes make saving any amount of money a challenge. Here are some ideas for making room in your budget to save enough without living like a monk.
It's amazing how many low-fee or even no-fee options exist for a variety of products. Add up all the fees that you pay on a monthly or annual basis, then look at each one and ask yourself if there's a cheaper alternative. Don't forget things like fees on investment accounts and mutual funds; these charges usually come right out of your investment balances, so you may never realize how much you're paying.
You'll likely have to dig into your fund's prospectus to find out how much it's really charging in fees, but the effort is worth the potential savings. For example, if you have $10,000 invested in a mutual fund that's charging 3% in fees, you'll be paying $300 a year for the privilege of owning those shares. If the fund produces an average 7% return per year, then after 10 years you'll have paid $4,435 in base fees plus the lost returns on that money.
Source: Fool.com
