1. By Joy HankeJoy Hanke

2. Retirement When you turn 65 retirement is something that is expected and looked forward to. Without the daily job there is now time to travel, relax, read the books you always wanted to but never had the chance, and to spoil the grandchildren. However if you do not plan ahead you might not be able to live such a leisure lifestyle. To evaluate your current retirement plan click here.here

3. What to Keep in Mind As time goes by it is important to factor into your retirement plan the inflation that will occur over the years which will have an affect on your salary. A second major part of the retirement plan is the savings rate that you will have. Below are some rates Average Inflation RateAverage Inflation Rate: 2.53% Average Savings RateAverage Savings Rate: 0.45% Graph of Inflation

4. An Example Situation One of the most important things to do is to start saving your money immediately for your future retirement. You may ask why it is important to start saving immediately and to show why an example will be used with a school teacher. Basic Information: Starting Salary- Starting Salary- $38,408 Ending Salary (incorporating inflation)- $112,893 Estimated time of Retirement- 15 Years Money for Retirement per year- $84,670 Total Savings should amount to- $1,225,471

5. The Secret…Start Saving Early If the teacher is wise and starts saving early she will have to save $25,894 a year for a comfortable retirement. However if she were to wait ten years then she would have to increase her annual savings to $34,529. The situation continually gets worse as she waits fifteen, twenty and twenty five years when she have to save $41,165, $50,691, $65,514 respectively. To calculate your own rates with how much you will have to save every year click here.here

6. What happens if you wait This chart shows how much of your salary has to be put towards your savings to have a comfortable retirement. As you can see the longer you wait the greater part of your salary is lost for your retirement. More information is available here. here

7. Percentage of Salary towards Savings Here you can see how much of the percentage of your annual salary goes to saving and should you wait twenty five years before you start saving you would have to put 91% of your salary towards savings to have a comfortable retirement. For other details on the benefits of saving early visit here.here

8. The Logic When you start saving your money immediately then as seen with the charts you would be able to keep a greater percentage of your money. This means that you would be able to use more of your money for other expenses such as car payments, mortgage, groceries and other expenses and still have a comfortable life. If you continue to wait before saving you will lose the extra money and will have to put an increasingly large amount of your salary into the bank leaving you with less to live on. To read more about this click here.here

9. Sources https://www.wachovia.com/foundation/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=5239fe532 b0aa110VgnVCM1000004b0d1872RCRD&vgnextfmt=default http://inflationdata.com/inflation/inflation_rate/ConfederateInflation.a sp http://www.money-rates.com/savings.htm#fill-table http://teacherportal.com/teacher-salaries-by-state http://cgi.money.cnn.com/tools/retirementplanner/retirementplanner.js p http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/CollegeAndFamily/MoneyInYour2 0s/ToGetRichStartSavingInYour20s.aspx http://www.bargaineering.com/articles/start-retirement-savings- early.html http://www.baltimoreathome.com/detail.aspx?dct=54&id=2634&mid=149 6&loc=rss