403B improvement

In my mid thirties, I realized that I was not saving enough money for my retirement:

• As I recall, my savings was around 3-5% of my income in the 1990s.
• Based my my contributions, I would have enought saved.
• With pensions plans going the way of the dinosaur and social security looking paltry, it is my responsibility to prepare for the future.

So, my little by little improvement was to fold every raise or market increase into my 403B contribution. So, over time I have gradually increased to giving of my pre-tax income to what it is today in 2007, 17.5%. Here's what happened:

• I don't miss the money that is going in my 403B.
• I have got used to not getting much of a raise.
• My wife has upped her contributions to 15% her part time income well.
• It took several years to get to 17.5% but it was easy and fairly painless because we did it slowly.

I'd like to take credit for this idea but Solomon actually came up with it with the wisdom God gave him:

Dishonest money dwindles away, but he who gathers money little by little makes it grow. Proverbs 13:11

I hope this helps you because it's worked for me. Take responsibility for your future with this little by little improvment idea.

Dan Lafever, Kaizeneer

Thank you for reading my blog.