Planning your retirement – don’t want to know about it. Let Betterment do it instead

Come on people! I have just got out of college and now you want to talk to me about retirement! I have still got a college debt or debts or I have just discharged them and I would like to have a life. But no, you want me to plan that far in advance – for my retirement or whatever. Give me a break, people!

However, in reality that is what it is all about – a series of steps to achieve and reach the next goal in life. People need to budget – for food, electricity, water, gas etc and you allocate your incoming earning(s) to ensure these are met. Similarly you have things you would like to do that you should save for. I myself have a system. Outsource! It works for me. I am told what to do, how to do it. Believe this is the only time in my life that I actually listen to other people and do as I am told.

My budgeting system looks like this:

• ·         Wage comes in
• ·         I have a bills account of which a percentage of my wage goes directly to – (food, utilities)
• ·         I have a ski account – a small percentage of my weekly wage goes to this
• ·         I have a holiday account (because skiing is different from a holiday) – same, straight out of my ‘pay’ account’ and into a here.
• ·         And it goes on. My sister even has an account for her dog to cover vets, medicines etc
• ·         You will seriously be so surprised how quickly it adds up

Then I need help – to save for the ‘future’. Unlike many of you, I really don’t want to think about it, so that is outsourced and again straight out of my pay. What is left and surprisingly there is goes towards anything I want and don’t necessarily need.

Betterment.com would suit a person like me very much. It is basically an investment company that yes, invests your money which you deposit weekly into things like stocks and bonds. It is a very user friendly site and does get good reviews. They have a simple web site that has no hesitation in stating simplistically why they are better than financial advisers, banks etc.

Everything is easy, thank goodness.

How to use Betterment

• ·         Set up an IRA account – individual retirement  account or normal investment
• ·         Set goals – like retire at age 45
• ·         Betterment will calculate repayments/savings necessary to achieve this
• ·         Have automatic deposits made – this is a good thing, out of sight out of mind
• ·         Check out the performance charts – what you have paid in, how much you still have to go – pictorially represented as well
• ·         Fees are.35% if $100 per month; .25% if $10,000 or more; .15% if $100,000 or more
• ·         Betterment mainly invests in bonds with a smaller % in stocks
• ·         Your money is safe and protected

Betterment is simple and straight forward, appealing for someone like me. It is well received in the market place, though maybe the super serious investor might like a little more input.

Two pieces of advice – add a column in your budget for that dreaded ‘r’ word and DO NOT touch your accumulating funds. Are you listening people?