Barriers to Retirement 5: Jeopardized Investments

This continues our series on barriers to retirement (This post should have been published on January 30)

While many depend on the first four elements of retirement: 1) a pension, 2) Social Security, 3) home equity, and 4) savings; most ignore 5) investing. This portion of our series will focus on personal investments .

Teaching Our Children to Invest

Let me illustrate differing approaches to investing. When my son turned 12, we taught him to change his savings from a piggy bank to a credit union account to earn interest. In other words his money would grow. My parents also bought him a share of Euro Disney.

His two best friends had different experiences. One boy’s father introduced him, at age 12, to the piggy bank. Prior to, the boy spent what he received. The second boy had opened his credit union account when he was 8. At 12, his father introduced him to mutual funds and encouraged him to invest $25 a month in mutual funds.

This story represents the difference between people. Some teach their children to save and invest—to make their money work for them and grow. Others teach their children to save and grow at a much smaller rate. Still others do not teach their children anything about money management.

Jeopardized Investments Affect Retirement

Typical investments, for those that do invest, include:

• Mutual funds (group ownership of multiple companies)
• Stocks (shared ownership of corporations)
• Bonds (investments in government and other debt instruments)
• Real estate (commercial, industrial, and residential—but not their prime residence)
• Certificates
• Precious metals, jewels, art, collectables and more
• Other investment tools and instruments

Consider what has happened to each of these types of investments.

In conclusion, most people do not invest, and many that do lost money on their investments. Jeopardized or non-existent investments may be a barrier to retirement. If you did not invest in the past, start now.

Join me later today when I explore "bridging” the new 6th element of retirement