Are You Ready to Invest?

We grew up in a world in which the news about the failure of Social Security is almost as constant as the news about the failure HMOs. We all know that it is unlikely that many people who are currently contributing to social security will ever see the money we've invested into the program. Therefore, we must look for alternatives and stop our reliance on the government for a comfortable retirement that doesn't appear to be available.

This is the reason we must take matters into our own hands and investing not only for our retirements, but also for emergencies and other matters such as fix broken houses, buy new cars, or pay hefty insurance deductibles for medical care. There are many reasons we choose to invest and very few that would ever be considered the wrong reason. The question remains, because there are so many out there who are not yet investing, with so many reasons to invest, are you ready to invest? Why? Here I share with you a few situations that should consider in your financial planning:

1. If you have children and a job that doesn't offer a pension plan or matching retirement fund then it is probably a good idea to invest on your own. Even if you don't have corporate provisions for contributions you have alternatives such as Roth IRAs that will give you a tax break for investing some of your money and helping to plan for your own retirement.

2. If you have children that will some day need dental work, medical services, and/or college educations it is about time that you began those savings plans. Yet again there are tax deferred and tax fee options that are available and having this money invested ahead of time can save you so much money later on that it is worth making a few sacrifices along the way to secure the future of your children.

3. If you want your retirement to be a nice comfortable existence and not to be spent in your future daughter-in-law's closet you need to be ready today to begin investing in your future retirement. Please consider the following, life expectancies are longer than ever, and the costs of living are continuing to rise at alarming rates. If you're not ready to invest you need to figure out why and fix the problem so that you can be ready to invest and soon.

Investing in your financial future is the greatest gift you can give yourself by far. If you aren't sure where to begin or how, perhaps it's time to seek the services of a qualified financial advisor. His advice may prove invaluable and may give you a much more comfortable future than you would have ever imagined left to your own devices.