The average American is not saving enough for retirement, and this can easily lead to financial stress and even a scarcity mindset. Life expectancy rates are increasing and many retirees are finding that they under-saved and are running out of money. There are creative ways out there to fund your retirement account.
While retirement is a long time away for me and this may be the case for you as well, it’s important to contribute something for your financial future and aim to increase contributions each year. This can be challenging when you’re facing everyday expenses like housing and food as well as debt payments.
Luckily, you can fund your retirement account well without thinking about it all the time. I actually prefer to save for retirement automatically and just let my account grow in the background. Here are some of the easiest and most creative ways to fund your retirement over the years without overworking and obsessing about it.
Increase Your 401(k) Contributions By Your Annual Raise Amount
Contributing to your 401(k) offered through your job can be an excellent way to fund your retirement account. Contributions are automatic and pre-tax so you won’t even notice the money coming out. Plus, some employers even offer to match your contributions which is extremely helpful.
If you start off contributing a small percentage of your income to your 401(k), see if you can increase that amount each year if you get a raise. Create a budget that allows you to live comfortably on your existing salary. Then, take the difference from your raise and use it to increase your retirement contributions. For example, if you get a 5% raise one year, you may want to increase your retirement savings by up to 5% of your paycheck. That way, you’re automatically saving more and you won’t miss the money you didn’t have.
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Earn Cash Back on Your Spending With EvoShare
EvoShare is a program that helps you earn cashback for purchases you make at popular retailers. The money you earn can be automatically added to your retirement account or put toward another financial goal. How it works is you’ll connect your Visa or Mastercard so purchases can be tracked. EvoShare partners with over 10,000 online and local merchants ad well as 700,000+ hotels worldwide.
When you spend money with a partnering retailer or hotel for travel, you’ll get cashback that will go directly toward your investments. EvoShare can be offered through your employer so be sure to ask them to sign up. Your entire team could likely benefit from an extra way to generate income to invest for retirement.
Easy and most creative ways to fund your retirement accounts over the years. Click To Tweet
Invest the Change With Acorns
Acorns is a free app that has put a whole new spin the saying ‘keep the change’. Instead of disregarding the change leftover from your purchases, Acorns will invest it on your behalf. Of course, Acorns works with your debit and credit cards so it won’t invest your physical change. Rather, your purchases will get rounded up to the nearest dollar so the difference can be invested.
For example, say you go through the drive-through and spend $4.50 at Starbucks. Acorns will round up the purchase to the nearest dollar and invest $0.50 for you. You can even set Acorns to round up your purchases to the nearest $2 or $3 to save at a more aggressive rate and you can also make regular contributions.
I’ve been adding an extra $5 per week to my Acorns account but you can do more or less depending on your preferences. The best part is that it’s small amounts of money that you likely won’t even miss. Yes, your balance can really add up over time.
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Fund Your Retirement With Rebates
Sell Things Online and Invest the Profit
Do you have anything lying around your house that you can sell? I try to sell old stuff all the time online. We try to declutter as much as possible, but there are still items I could find around my home to sell all year round if I wanted to. You can also look into creating things that you can sell online. Consider selling crafts on Etsy or selling printables or e-books online.
This is something can could potentially become a passive stream of income for you. Plus, you can use all the profits you receive and add them to your retirement savings account. Imagine if you are able to earn $300/month by selling various items online. This is $3,600 per year that can be used to fund your retirement in an IRA or other type of account.
Do you feel like you’re saving enough for retirement? What are some of your favorite creative alternative ways to fund your retirement?
