KLE 17: 3 Ways To Find Your Number
There are three ways to find your Number:
1. The Random Way
2. The Easy Way
3. The Right Way
Let’s look at each of them ‘up close’:
The Random Way
The most common way that people come up with their Number is randomly … usually based on some notion that they want to be: “wealthy”; “rich”; “comfortable”; “retired”; and, so on …
The people who say they want to be “wealthy”; “rich”; “comfortable”; “retired”; and, so on usually manage to come up with some number (generally, around the $1 million mark) that represents their financial target.
The problem is that their definition often seem to be pretty loose: for example, I met a lady in Sedona, AZ a couple of years ago who said that she had moved there because she was now “retired”. I met her at the checkout of some store: she was the one working the register … some ‘retirement’!
On the other end of the spectrum are all of those wonderful online retirement calculators; for example, how do you think that most of those people running the Georgia Marathon (in KLE 16’s video) found their Numbers?
Actually, they guessed … they just didn’t realize they were guessing!
Sure, they plugged some numbers into ING’s really neat online calculator that then produced a Number, ‘accurate’ down to 6 or 7 distinct digits …
… but, don’t be fooled!
You see a calculator is only as good as its INPUTS – another way of saying this is GIGO: Garbage In Garbage Out.
The ‘garbage’ in this case, are the three key variables that the online calculator relies on:
– How much money you want to earn (not now, by when you want to retire)?
– How much inflation will there be until you retire, and after you retire?
– How long does your money need to last (i.e. how long will you live)?
Who really knows the answer to ANY of these questions? Nobody!
That’s why you get GIGO results … and, this is not just a problem with ING’s retirement calculator, it’s a problem with ANY retirement calculator!
Let’s take a closer look at the other two methods …
The Easy Way
Actually, I also started my journey to wealth with a definition: I wanted to be “rich”:
A semi-famous financial seminar ‘guru’ told me (in 1998) that “rich” – which he defined as being able to live pretty much where you want, vacation whenever/wherever you want, drive whatever you want, etc. – required an annual income of around $250,000.
I checked in with the ‘guru’ again – about a year ago – and, he told me that this number is now closer to $500,000 per year.
Look, let me short circuit all of this for you: if you really want to select your Number based on some loose notion of being “wealthy” or “rich” or “comfortable” or whatever, look no further than this table:
Note: You need to be a Premium Member to view this content:
Like any budget, this can be really difficult, I will be helping you with plenty of examples to help make finding your Number the right way a much easier exercise.
I came up with the number $25,000,000, so I have some work to do, and I’d be a total outcast at a ING marathon.
I think this is what your talking about.