[k-man]

I find that many people equate savers with folks who have no fun. Afterall, you can't possibly have any fun if you live beneath your means and save money right?

Wrong.

Don't get me wrong, me and the wife make a very nice living now, but that wasn't always the case. We still lived beneath our means and we've always traveled lots and had a lot of fun. As our income has gone up, sure, we're able to travel a bit more, but we still look for bargains. The biggest change we see in our increased income over the years is our ability to save more money.

We each earn a six figure salary, and we just don't know many people in our income bracket who live like we do. We have older cars that we paid cash for and we'll drive them until they die. Every single person we know making the kind of money we make drives a luxury vehicle. We have a 16 year old house that we paid cash for.....all of our friends in our income bracket live in newer, fancier neighborhoods. When we travel, we're fine staying in first class vs. deluxe (which is how all of our high-earning friends travel). I mow the lawn, and my wife cleans our home. All of our friends in our income bracket have help for those chores. This is easily $5,000 a year and yet it only takes each of us about 2 hours once a week to do our job. We eat most meals in and brown bag it for lunch (which not only saves money...it also keeps us healthy!!) My co-workers eat out more than they eat in.....by far! And that's just the tip of the ice berg.

I know for a fact that most of our friends and my co-workers aren't saving nearly as much as they should towards retirement. So, this isn't just a problem for folks making the medican income. In fact, I think that people in the higher brackets will be far more disappointed in their "golden years" because they'll suffer a much greater decline in lifestyle than those who earn less. These people simply live up to their salary....end of story.

Most go at it all wrong. They put whatever is "left over" after all of the spending is done instead of starting with savings and spending what is left after that. But the spending seemingly never ends, and so there just isn't a lot left over. That's the biggest single factor in why people fail to save enough for retirement.....not setting goals. I would venture a guess that most are a paycheck or two away from having to dip into their under-funded 401Ks and IRAs.