Accomplishing the financial cushion to retire early is a fantasy for most. Bringing the fantasy to reality is not as difficult as it sounds. The key is straightforward: Save significantly more every month. Sounds simple, correct? One moment.
Typically, advisors peg 15% to 20% of total income saved each month as a goal – but if you want to retire earlier, you probably have to ratchet that number up to 40% or 50% of your income. Not a feat easily accomplished when you review your take into account that a good portion of your paycheck goes to essential, non-negotiable lifestyle items. However, if you are willing to make some serious lifestyle changes and sacrifices, it’s possible.
This concept of intensive saving for an early retirement has spawned a movement called FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early). Followers of FIRE strive to save up to three-quarters of their income, and make other adjustments too: live in small homes, walk to work each day, practice strict diet plans, and more. Even if this lifestyle may sound a bit unreasonable, the ideas behind it are worth considering.
To start, stick with the essentials of long-term growth investing: Build a diversified portfolio of stocks with exposure to various styles, sizes, sectors, and regions.
To speed up the retirement investment cycle, you can build a portfolio structured with more risk – and the potential for higher returns. It should in any case be adequately diversified to safeguard against sharper than normal market downturns that can be hard to recuperate from and that can ruin any opportunity to achieve your early retirement goal. There are various strategies to diversify a portfolio, and how you do so should be guided by your age, your risk appetite, your growth and income needs, and your long-term objectives.
Once you have accelerated your savings and put an ongoing plan in place, invest your savings into your portfolio as soon as possible. Don’t try to time the market. Leave your portfolio alone, and let the compounding nature of the markets do its magic to help grow your retirement nest egg exponentially over time.
You may want to look at growth stocks with attributes acceptable for retirement investing like low beta, strong earnings estimates, positive sales growth, and expected future growth.
The Zacks Rank regularly identifies attractive growth stocks ideal for retirement investing. Here are just a few that might be worth consideration: Waterstone Financial (WSBF), Virtu Financial (VIRT) and First Financial Corp. (THFF). These are top-ranked stocks, with at least 5% earnings and sales growth over the past five years, and boast beta equal to or lower than 1.
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First Financial Corporation Indiana (THFF): Free Stock Analysis Report
Virtu Financial, Inc. (VIRT): Free Stock Analysis Report
Waterstone Financial, Inc. (WSBF): Free Stock Analysis Report
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The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
