One small change that will produce huge results

The question I’m asked most frequently by clients about their retirement is this:

“Will I have enough?” 

If baby boomers are losing sleep over an issue, that’s it.  And I don’t blame them.  There’s a lot hanging on the answer to that question.  Having enough means freedom, opportunity, peace of mind, and independence.

So how can you improve your chances of success?  A few years back the mutual fund company Putnam and the data firm Lipper did a study on that very topic.  They measured the impact of changes in several key variables like asset allocation, fund performance, and contribution rates.

Rather than bore you with the details, I’ll just share one conclusion.  The variable that had the greatest impact by far was how much a person saved.  In fact, increasing savings rates from 2 percent to 4 percent had 90 times (90 TIMES!) the impact of being able to perfectly pick the best performing mutual funds.

So if you want to make a small change today that will have a huge impact on your retirement security, get online or call your HR department and increase the percentage that you’re contributing to your 401(k) each month.  The change will take five minutes, but will have more impact than anything this side of winning the lottery.

Thanks for reading.  Have a great weekend!

Joe