You may be closer to being able to retire than you think

If you have only 10 years left before you retire, and you only have half of what you need, don’t worry, you still may be OK.

I met a 55-year-old couple the other day who wanted to retire at age 65. Let’s call them Stan and Tasha. In order to generate the income they desired at retirement, they’d need to have $1.2 million of income-generating retirement assets by then.

Stan was freaking out. “It took us 30 years to put away $600,000. How in the (colorful word) are we going to get another $600,000 in just 10 years?” Tasha looked on with true concern splashed all over her face. “I can put $20,000 per year away at the most, and that will only equal another $200,000 come retirement. Will I have to invest very aggressively now? Where’s the $400,000 coming from?”

Math, my man. Math!

I sure hope my middle school math teacher reads my column. I must have said “when are we ever going to use this?” a couple dozen times in seventh grade alone. Alas, math matters.

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