Well, I gave myself a mini goal to meet in March. I wanted to increase my 403b contributions from $800 to $1000. By doing this, my entire raise would be saved for retirement.
And I did it!!!!
I delivered the paper to the district office this week.
Both The Husband and I want to retire comfortably. Actually, it's one of our biggest fears that we won't have enough money to retire on. To that end, we are working on maxing out his 401k and upping my contributions.
Assuming The Husband receives his "usual" raise of 3-4%, once we adjust his contributions accordingly, he should be very near to maxed out. Also, his company increases his 401k contributions by 1% on every year on his workiversary. At that point, his 401k should be maxed out. He is currently contribution 14%. If he gets a 3% raise, we will up his contributions by 2% right away with his work upping his contribution by 1% again in August. He would be contributing 17% of his pretax income to retirement.
I won't be contributing as much; but slowly we will continue to raise my contributions as I receive any raises.
We are really trying to avoid "lifestyle inflation"... well, at least until our retirement plans are maxed out.
The benefits of doing this are twofold. Obviously, the tax deferment and forced retirement savings are one goal. The second benefit is realizing we can live on less, but know that there is more if we need it. It's reassuring to know that we can always stop retirement contributions if needed and have an extra $1500+ of take home pay each month. But it's even more reassuring knowing we don't need to do that and we can continue to contribute!
I was very happy to meet my mini goal. Funnily enough, I think this blog had a lot to do with it. Even though nobody reads this but me, the accountability of putting it out there helped me to follow through!
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