Previously posted on March 13, 2015
A recent post on the Plansponsor website states that the Pension Rights Center believes the aggregate deficit for U.S. retirement income is $7.7 TRILLION. There is no link to the study or any explanation of how this number is calculated, but the idea is in step with what everyone should already know. Future retirees have not saved enough and getting back on track is a very daunting task.
The post was centered around what some members of the U.S. Senate believe needs to be done, and several things stuck out to me. Some feel they need to raise the contribution caps on qualified plans, others believe more stringent regulation on financial services is the answer, but none of them suggest allowing the free market to operate on its own. Nor do they offer a solution that would help educate someone on the value of saving and self-reliance. The short version is that they are using the same level of thinking to solve a problem that was used to create the problem in the first place.
The solution, in my humble opinion, is to change how you think about money and saving and responsibility. Specifically, who is responsible for saving for your retirement? Is that on the government? A person’s employer? Someone else? The answer is clear. Each individual is responsible for their own saving and their own future. While we are all here to help one another, the ultimate responsibility is on the individual. I make this point because of the frequency that I hear and read about how a company is not contributing enough to the employee’s retirement plan, or the government isn’t policing the financial industry heavily enough, or the best/only option for savings is a qualified plan. Each of these ideas leads one down a path of limitation and dependency, and they are rampant. Even if someone has been able to stash money in a 401(k) and they have benefited from the recent market rebound, they are still limited by rules and fees and dependency based thinking.
If one is able to overcome these limiting thoughts, the road to wealth and financial freedom lies ahead. The Perpetual Wealth Code is a powerful tool that has been around for a long time allowing people to manage their own financial lives. It all starts with saving, and there are most definitely options that aren’t limited by the short-sighted Senators in Washington D.C. Your financial future is in your hands, and it looks bright.