User:BeBH65/Experiments

Develop a workable plan

 * Watch the video: Start with a sound financial lifestyle.
 * Watch the video: Develop a workable Plan

The Bogleheads approach to developing a workable financial plan is to establishing a sound financial lifestyle.

Develop a sensible household budget - one that provides for needed expenditures, discretionary pleasures and savings for big ticket items like home purchase and higher education for dependents, as well as savings for long term retirement planning.
 * Avoid bad debt; if you have such debt, pay off those balances first.
 * Perhaps the most important idea underlying the Bogleheads approach to investing is recognizing you need to save a significant portion of income every month to have enough money for a comfortable retirement. There is no substitute for spending less than you earn. Live below your means. If you don't save enough, no amount of financial trickery will provide the returns needed for a comfortable retirement.

Next, after establishing your sound financial lifestyle and you start investing for the future, many believe it is valuable to put a simple plan in writing. Relax! Of course you can’t know the future! But it will serve you to imagine one scenario. The enemy of a good plan is the search for a perfect plan. Make assumptions, and then change them when you get better ideas or better information. Our goal is to enable these possibilities. Putting your plan in writing will help give you the discipline to “stay the course”.