Don't Give Up

[james.hendrickson]

This post is for everyone saving:

DO NOT GIVE UP. Don't give up on saving out of the silly idea that you'll never have enough to safely retire on. Forget the focusing on the big number you need to reach. Instead, plug the figure into a calculator and break down what the annual, monthly and weekly savings goals should be. Focus on this smaller number. If you do this you'll see that, step by step, you can build your retirement or other savings accounts.

Don't give up, break it down.

[Jluke]

50:30:20

[scfr]

I agree, and I'd take it even a step further. It's OK if the first step is saving just what you think you can, no matter the amount. When I started saving, it was $50 per month to a CD. At the time I was so embarrassed by the amount that I didn't tell anyone. In her book "Get Good With Money" Tiffany Aliche, aka the Budgetnista, shared that her initial savings amount was $5 (I don't remember the frequency). Both Tiffany & I are doing OK now, and we started pretty small.

If the thought of trying to save $XM or XX% is overwhelming, figure out what you can save from your next paycheck and just do it. Think of it like an exercise regimen. Thinking about going from being inactive to doing 5 sessions of aerobic activity + 2 sessions of strength training + 3 sessions of balance/stretching per week might make you throw your hands up and give up. But maybe the thought of walking the dog around the block instead of just letting it out in the back yard, and carrying your own groceries instead of asking for help, and doing a couple stretches while watching the news feels doable. So do that and try to turn out any voices (including the one in your own head) that tells you it's not enough. Just take a first step.

[bjl584]

It is frustrating at first, and you think that you will never make any progress.
But, through the power of compounding I am starting to see my portfolio grow exponentially.

When I first started I was just setting a portion of my paycheck into my savings account each week.

[kork13]

It is frustrating at first, and you think that you will never make any progress.
But, through the power of compounding I am starting to see my portfolio grow exponentially.

When I first started I was just setting a portion of my paycheck into my savings account each week.

That's such a simple, and yet important point. I don't think I really started to see significant progress until I was at least 7-8 years of slowly investing whatever I could. Sometimes alot, sometimes just a token amount. I don't know exactly when my investments started earning more than I was contributing every year, but that is unquestionably occurring at this point (now 15 years into the process). It's like rolling a bike down a long but slight hill. Progress is slow at first, but as you keep rolling, slowly picking up speed. Over time, you get to the bottom and & you're moving quite fast indeed.

Slow, steady progress. Tracking that progress helps alot as well -- at first, I tracked my growth every month, and built an excel graph to display my progress. That was really encouraging for me, to see that line grow & start to turn exponential. Over time, I've started only checking on things every 6 months, because now I know I'm doing well & moving consistently in the right direction.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

It is frustrating at first, and you think that you will never make any progress.
But, through the power of compounding I am starting to see my portfolio grow exponentially.

When I first started I was just setting a portion of my paycheck into my savings account each week.

I think there are a group of us in that situation. We weren't seeing any progress especially since we really started around 2005/2006. Where our investments kept on going down but DH and I kept on throwing money at it. Frustrating. Then it all turned around and now our gains are from our investments and not saving. Also for the past few years we've been saving exponentially more money but it still doesn't keep up with our gains.