Personal Finance News Thursday 5/2

Phil's Personal Finance Tip of the Day:

How to Save One Million Dollars

By Jocelyn Black Hodes | DailyWorth 

The elusive million dollar milestone...is it reachable? Well, in short, yes. But not without some careful planning and discipline. Time is a key factor, of course. It all depends on your age, when you plan to retire, what kinds of accounts you use, your investment costs, and your risk tolerance. The more you are able to save on a regular basis, the less risk you need to take and the less time it should take to hit that first million.

Start Saving Now

If you are 35 and starting from scratch, for example, you need to save around $735 per month to have $1 million by age 65, assuming an 8% average annual return. If you are 40, you need to save around $1,135 per month. If you were willing to take on more risk with your investments and managed to average a 10% annual return, you would only have to save around $506 per month from age 35, or around $850 each month from age 40. If you were more conservative, you would need to save more. You get the idea. (You can use the SEC's calculator to plug in your age and determine monthly contributions.)

Keep in mind that these numbers do not take potential investment costs into account like management fees and fund expense ratios, which could decrease your annual returns by more than 2%. This means that you will likely need to contribute more and/or take on more risk to meet your goal. They also don't take into account inflation and taxes (we'll get to that in a minute).

To read the entire article from Jocelyn Black Hodes | DailyWorth:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/save-1-million-dollars-000000825.html;_ylt=Ahcdxo7VbfT__kSTmOhE.HqiuYdG;_ylu=X3oDMTQ0dXRraDBvBG1pdANGUCBQZXJzb25hbCBGaW5hbmNlBHBrZwNmNzE1ODhmOC0xOTQyLTM3Y2QtYmFiOC03MzkxYmY1OWYwYmMEcG9zAzEEc2VjA01lZGlhU2VjdGlvbkxpc3QEdmVyAzMyNmM3NGExLWIyYTYtMTFlMi1iZTZjLTRlOWJhYzUzNjg0Zg--;_ylg=X3oDMTFkcW51ZGliBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdANob21lBHB0A3BtaA--;_ylv=3


Inspirational Quotes@Inspire_Us from Twitter:
If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves. -Thomas Edison

Hi my name is Philip J. Miano and I am the founder of PJM Personal Finance and Productivity Coaching specializing in Budgeting, Debt Reduction, Bank Reconciliations, Goal Setting, Time Management, and Organizational skills. Please visit my website: http://pjmcoaching.com.