Save to Reach Your Goals

摘要

You're saving for retirement, a down payment on a house, the kids' college fund, or a trip to the Great Barrier Reef. So you set aside a certain portion of your earnings each month and hope it will add up to your financial goal. But will it be enough? Such plans can work over the long term, but you must be willing to increase your investments steadily to keep ahead of inflation. If you figure it would cost £50,000 today to put your new-born through university and that's the amount you end up with, your resources will be woefully inadequate 18 years hence. On the other hand, if you figure college will cost, say, £200,000 by then, it also doesn't make sense to follow a strategy of level periodic payments - the amount you would have to set aside in the early years (when you have a lower income) would be too high.