I was thinking of budgeting earlier today, and coincidentally came across a mention of this site http://betterbudgeting.com/ in Self Magazine (I canceled the subscription incidentally, and this is my last issue - I had it at the office to flip through while a particularly big query was churning). Its pretty neat, and I like their Black Belt Budgeting concept.
The article in Self (the August issue) also mentioned that to prep for retirement, one should have 12 times their annual salary in reserve (at the time of retirement I'm assuming, probably based on living 12 or so years past age 65, adding that income to benefits that one would gain through SS, assuming its still around then). They suggest that the best way to do this is to invest 12% of your salary via 401k or otherwise. That's neat in concept I guess, but Brian and I need to get out of our high interest debt before tacking something like that.
It was a cool article, and worth checking out if you have access to. They suggest things for people of each decade (in their 30's, 40's and 50's) to do and have guidelines for investing for your child's college education, scaling back spending, and other useful tidbits.
The article in Self (the August issue) also mentioned that to prep for retirement, one should have 12 times their annual salary in reserve (at the time of retirement I'm assuming, probably based on living 12 or so years past age 65, adding that income to benefits that one would gain through SS, assuming its still around then). They suggest that the best way to do this is to invest 12% of your salary via 401k or otherwise. That's neat in concept I guess, but Brian and I need to get out of our high interest debt before tacking something like that.
It was a cool article, and worth checking out if you have access to. They suggest things for people of each decade (in their 30's, 40's and 50's) to do and have guidelines for investing for your child's college education, scaling back spending, and other useful tidbits.