Don’t stop reading about ways to save more and enhance your retirement but be aware that you’re in a relatively good place as a federal employee or retiree. Image: aastock/Shutterstock.com
By: John Grobe, Federal Career ExpertsFive money saving tips for retirees! Seven ways to survive the upcoming recession! Perhaps you’ve been seeing more articles with titles like this over the last several months – I know that I have. I’ve seen them in AARP publications. I’ve seen them in newspapers. I’ve seen them pop up on my social media feed.
These articles suggest many things we can do in order to be financially secure for the future. Some of them are common sense, big picture, actions that we have written about previously; thinks like:
• Setting goals for your saving and spending.
• Establishing an emergency fund.
• Automating your saving through payroll deduction and direct debit.
• Paying yourself first by making savings a line item in your budget.
However, you also see other suggestions that delve deeper into the weeds of saving and spending.
• Turning down our thermostats in cold weather and keeping the house warmer in hot weather.
• Using coupons and shopping apps for grocery and other shopping.
• Stopping smoking. Recently I noticed that the price of a pack of name brand cigarettes was over $7. At the time I quit smoking, you could get a carton for a little over $10.
• Cancelling subscriptions that you do not use.
• Reviewing subscriptions that you still use to see if there are less expensive options.
• Taking a staycation instead of traveling.
• Donating plasma to a blood bank that pays for it.
• Asking for discounts. In some cases, senior discounts begin as young as age 50. By the time you reach age 65 there are a lot of senior discounts available. Many companies and organizations offer discounts to active duty military and veterans.
We all should take the big picture actions; they will put us in a good financial place as we advance in our career and ultimately retire. The smaller items are indeed ways we can save more money and/or make our dollars go further, but we, as federal employees and retirees, find that we may not need to need to take these steps. That doesn’t mean that these lesser items won’t help us save money, it just means that many of us find ourselves in a position where these actions are not necessary because we are well situated financially.
• Federal employees have much more job security than those in the private sector. It is unlikely that we will lose our jobs due to market forces, mergers, etc. We don’t need as big an emergency fund as do most private sector employees.
• Federal retirees have a good old-fashioned pension in their FERS annuity. It’s an inflation indexed source of monthly income that will last us as long as we live. Less than 15% of new hires in the private sector have access to a pension.
• The Thrift Savings Plan is among the best employer sponsored defined contribution plans. FERS and BRS participants get a government match that is better than the average match in private sector plans. 35% of private sector employees do not have access to an employer sponsored defined benefit plan and, of the 65% that do, 20% get no match at all.
Don’t stop reading all the articles on ways to save more and enhance your retirement but be aware that you’re in a pretty good place as a federal employee or retiree.
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