5 Quick Wins to Help You Get on Track for Retirement

0:00Here's the truth. Catching up on retirement doesn't take giant leaps or a magic wand. It takes small strategic wins stacked over time. Today, I'm sharing five simple steps you can take this month to start closing the gap and proving to yourself that it's not too late. Welcome to the Wealthy After 40 podcast, the show for Gen X women and couples who are ready to ditch financial stress and feel confident about retirement. I'm your host, Daylene Higgins, financial and retirement coach, helping Gen Xers master their money and create a personalized retirement plan so they can stop spinning their wheels and step boldly into their dream retirement.

0:44If you're feeling behind, don't worry. Continue listening to this podcast as well as be sure to grab your free guide, 5 Must Do Steps to Start Retirement Planning Now at elevatefinances.us backslash must do. And remember, let's make retirement possible together. Welcome to the episode. This is the final episode of our quick little series about getting started late with retirement savings or planning, whatever it is you're dealing with. The first episode was about starting late, that mindset, thinking that and how it's really causing you a detriment and how to get out of that. Then the next episode was about taking advantage of the late start and how you're actually in a better position and how to use that to springboard your potential and your actions.

1:43If you've missed those two, you can head over there before or after, but this is just wrapping up to give you some actual action steps to put into place to start seeing how you can take action now that you're at this point of life and ready to get serious about retirement. This episode is all about quick wins. But when I say quick wins, they are really just small, simple actions that are going to give you momentum and confidence. And these are the steps that you want to get into, implement, and use to keep going. But many people at this stage, when they are feeling like they're, quote, late to the game, they search for a big one and done solution because they're wanting to make up for that lost time.

2:40They feel like they need to do something different, but that is only going to delay your progress. The time to search and find that, the hoping that it'll work out, the implementation, you've got to go with the things that work and understand that these small consistent steps are going to get you there and really hone into getting you closer to retirement sooner. Again, the episode just before this one was talking about using your wisdom, your experiences, and already knowing a lot of things than maybe a 25-year-old. Remember all of those things. If you haven't listened to that, that I think is essential in setting you up to better understand these small actions.

3:32While you might be thinking, but I've missed 10 years or 15 years, it doesn't matter. You still need to do the consistent actions. Consistency is the number one factor in financial progress, far more important than doing something perfect or once in a while. When it comes to money and retirement, consistency means that we are implementing some repeating, simple, but intentional actions. Again, they need to be simple but intentional that can be repeated over time. The key here is to choose steps, habits, whatever you want to call them, that you can maintain long term. Not short bursts of all in energy and then having to hold back and wait.

4:32You are wanting to do things that are just going to happen that are going to be easy. We're going to talk about that in a minute. And that can be stackable, right? We implement one, get it going. We're going to choose another one, get it going. Quick wins are our entry point. They will help you layer over time those small repeatable actions, but they can be layered. While it's only one, then we're going to add two, Then we're going to add three. Just like our money is compounding with interest, the actions are compounding one over the other. Again, make sure that with your consistency, the habits, the skills, the actions, whatever you're calling them, make sure they are simple and intentional.

5:27It's not about saving$20 ,000 in just one shot. Now, if you get a windfall, that's great. But it's about proving to yourself that you can save consistently, even in small amounts. I talked about that in one of the prior episodes about the it's only. And it's only times 10 or 20 or whatever can build up to thousands of dollars. So you have got to get consistent even in small amounts and let that build. Again, compound interest and compound your actions. Without consistent actions, you stay in a cycle of starting, stopping, losing momentum. It's going to put you into that frustration stage again, and you're going to feel behind.

6:26This feeling that you have that you're behind, you need to take those small, simple, intentional actions to keep you going, to keep you moving ahead, to keep something that you can keep doing, not start and stop. Not, well, I can do this much this month. Oh, but next month I can't do any. We need to create a consistency, a small flow. don't be afraid of the small. Consistency is going to give you clarity. You can see real progress in your numbers. Number two, each win proves that you are capable. You're going to see that. You're going to feel that. Number three, every step compounds and accelerates your path to retirement.

7:20Consistency, it's the difference between being stuck in what if versus seeing some true movement, some true momentum to reaching your retirement goal. If you're ready to identify your exact steps for you, your first step is booking a retirement roadmap session. In that session, which is a financial reality checkup, it will show you what to focus on and how to stay consistent. If you're really wanting to dial into specific steps for you that you can be simple and consistent in, head on over to elevatefinances.us backslash roadmap and book your session today. We can create a list of these small actions that you can implement.

8:14how do you implement quick wins or what are a few i've got five of them and i'm going to make the list and what i know a lot of people do is hear all five forget or they hear all five and they go to try and do three or four or five of them i want you to start with one this is about without consistency. We don't need a massive overhaul or hours of budgeting. That's not what we're doing with these five suggestions. You're going to choose one today. That's all I want you to commit to is one. And as I talk about all of these five, I want you to pick the most simple one for you. Because simple means you can do it.

9:04There's not a lot of time spent in learning it or implementing it and you can get it done. I'm Sherry O, host of the Mature Allure podcast, where we talk about beauty, wellness, confidence, money, and all the things that matter most to women 40 and beyond. Join me and my guests each week for honest conversations that inspire, uplift, and keep you laughing. Tap into Mature Allure today.

9:41All right. Commit to one. The first one is I want you to track where your money is going for 30 days. This you can do by writing down your spending every day, you know, quick note on your phone or quick post it somewhere, or you can look at the past 30 days. Everything's digital. It's all right there. I want you to track and have a better understanding of where your money is going. And then for the next 30 days, pick one area of spending that you did not feel quite good with. You were like, I can do better. That's what I want you to focus on for 30 days. Nothing hard, nothing big, 30 days, and then you can do another 30 days, or then you can choose one of the others.

10:32Number two, this one's probably the very easiest, honestly. It's my favorite too. That's probably why I'm saying that. But I want you to increase retirement contributions by 1 % today. Okay, 1%. Next month, this same day, I want you to do another 1%. And then one more month after that, I want you to do another 1%. I've shared this strategy before. This is easy. It doesn't take a lot of time. It's powerful when you implement it, especially consistent months. Watch for your tightness, your spending. You're like, I don't have a lot of money left. And then I want you to pause. I want you to pause and do one of the others.

11:21And I want you to remember to do this one again in six to nine months. consistency, consistency. Now that 1 % that you've done for three months, now you have 3%, is compounding on its own out there, continually moving forward. But we're going to come back in six to nine months and do it again. All right, third one. Again, this is about quick wins. I want you to open or max out a Roth IRA if you're eligible. If you're not, I have an alternative, but open one if you don't have one. Max out the Roth if you have one. If you're not eligible for the Roth, I want you to max out a 401. one. That challenge of pushing yourself to max it out.

12:18That is your one and only focus. Heck, if you do the 1%, that's going to automatically do it for you. Easy. Remember easy. Number four, I want you to set up a savings little account somewhere to stick money for upcoming expenses. Now, when this is releasing, Christmas is not that far off. That would be a really good one if you don't already have money set aside. And the reason you're doing this is to help you avoid incurring new debt. If you remember last episode, I talked about how is debt and is it going to be your best friend or not? make sure you start working on that relationship with debt.

13:10And you can do that by setting some money aside for a big upcoming expense. All right. And the final quick win, again, I'm only encouraging you to do one of these. Cut one recurring expense. This one, you can look at your spending. Maybe you did a backtrack of your last 30 days. What is a recurring expense? like, you know what, I could probably do without that. I bet if you do a quick, you know, inventory of that, we talked about inventory earlier. Nope, that was last episode. And Tori, your recurring expenses, your bills. Now there's bills that we can't opt out of, but there are bills that we can.

13:53Look at them. How do you feel about them? What are you going to lean into? How are you going to fix those? Remember my client, she was the one that was buying her first investment property. It was just a few episodes ago. I'll link it down in the show notes so you can go listen to it. And she made her list of bills and she cut four of them out between session one and two, which is only seven days. And she says, I can do them better. When you cut it or when you reduce it or when you pause it, because you can do any of those things, I want you to direct that to savings. Maybe you did your retirement contributions by 1 % for three months.

14:33You're feeling a little tight so you're going to jump into the recurring expenses you're going to evaluate them real quickly maybe you can pause one so you can free up some money so you don't feel so tight re you know you're like re uh balancing everything and getting a fill for the new and then maybe you can do that quicker maybe you don't have to wait six to nine months really start getting creative i've just given you these five ideas quick wins start the juices is flowing. Start the action happening. Create intention on who you are and what you are. Pick one today. The sooner you start, the sooner you're going to feel the momentum and see.

15:16See what is happening and you're going to want to keep going. Build your motivation. All right, so let's recap this episode. Quick wins aren't about being perfect. They're about building consistency. The more consistent you are, the faster your retirement gap will close. The faster you will get to that dream of retiring, and I want you to get there. In my heart, I know that retirement is possible for everybody, and I really want to support as many of you as I can. If you're ready for clarity on your personalized action plan, your first step again is to book a retirement roadmap session. It's your financial reality checkup and the easiest way for you to have a list of action steps to implement that are simple and intentional.

16:13Head on over to elevatefinances.us backslash roadmap, book your session today or jump on a free call. Let's chat about it. thank you for this series i hope it was helpful i hope i was able to move you ahead and get you out of that fear of being late getting out of that stalling because you think you're late and really thinking about achieving retirement that is what i want you to do is have a renewed thinking that it is possible because honestly i know it's possible and if you stay tuned into all of my episodes, I know you will find a way to make retirement possible. But again, if you're looking for a quicker way and a for sure way, please jump on that call.

17:03Let's talk about what working together looks like and let's get you to make retirement possible.

17:11Thank you for spending this time with me. If you're not already following the show, be sure to hit subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next. And I'd love to stay connected with you between episodes. So come join me inside my Facebook community, Retirement Ready Hub for Gen Xers. It's where we're having real conversations about money, sharing wins, working through challenges, and building a clear path toward retirement. And remember, retirement isn't just a dream, it's a plan, and you get to make it possible.