Here are 8 tips for people who are saving too much for retirement:
If you use a retirement planning calculator
that is detailed and personalized enough to help you feel confident about your
future, then you may be better able to relax your tendency toward saving.
2. Rediscover hobbies
Working and raising children often results
in people forgetting about hobbies and activities they enjoy. If you’ve lost
sight of what you enjoy doing in your free time, work on rediscovering those
passions.
3. Develop relationships outside of work.
Our consumer-driven society has trained
everyone to believe that more stuff will make us happy, but often the opposite
is true. Paying for more stuff means working more hours, and we forget about what
really makes us happy, which is spending time with people we like.
Cultivate relationships that matter the
most to you, with family, friends, people at church or in a social group.
4. Assess what working and saving is doing
for you.
If you are in the minority and think you are
saving too much, ask yourself some hard questions. Saving too much is never a
bad thing, but you don’t want to have regrets in the future. Why are you so
focused on frugality and saving?
Many people genuinely love their work and
leisure gives them more stress than the daily grind and excitement of their
career.
Other people are living to work instead of
working to live. Your career may be
lucrative, but is the stress of your job taking a toll on your health? You
could be saving for a long retirement that you’ll never get to enjoy if long
hours and stress are making you sick.
5. Invest in other things besides your bank
account.
Sometimes, the best savings plan is
investing in your health, family, and social and intellectual connections. Take
the time to exercise and eat healthfully and enjoy people and leisure pursuits.
6. Start small.
If you are an over saver, you are probably
extremely disciplined and not fast to make a big splurge with either your time
or money.
It’s okay to start small.
7. Go slow, take time to develop new habits.
Most importantly it is important to give
yourself time to adjust to the idea of enjoying life instead of worrying too
much about money.
A study found that it takes 66 days — on
average — for something to become a habit.
The range was 18 days to nearly 3/4 of a year for people to ingrain a
new behavior into their lives. However,
this research was focused on relatively simple behaviors like drinking a glass
of water with lunch — not whole lifestyle changes.
Of course, it’s better to have too much
money saved for retirement than not enough. But don’t deny yourself life’s
pleasures to maximize your nest egg. Some people compromise their lifestyle
today for what they think will be their golden years tomorrow. Your golden
years are right now.
Save for retirement, but make sure you’re
also accumulating experiences and hours spent with loved ones and friends.
After all, that’s the true measure of a life well spent.
8. Create a detailed plan to help you gain
confidence that you have saved enough.
Many people keep working and saving because
they just aren’t confident that they have enough. Building and managing your
own detailed retirement plan is a great way to find confidence and clarity for
how much you really need.
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