How to Invest for Retirement (After You Do This First)
episodePreviously titled “Ep 136 | How to Invest for Retirement (After You Do This First)” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 2, 2026
Wealthy After 40: Retirement Planning and Budgeting for Gen X
15 min
1 speaker
1 chapter
transcribed 1 month ago
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When you think about retirement, what's the first thing that comes to mind? If you said investing, you're not alone. Everyone says you need to invest early. But when you're just starting out and barely covering bills, investing isn't the first step. In this episode, I will be sharing why it isn't the first step and when it should be the next step, because I do believe investing is important to make retirement possible. 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.
If you're feeling behind, don't worry. Continue listening to this podcast as well as be sure to grab your free guide, Five 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. As I said, I will be sharing about why investing shouldn't be your first step when thinking about retirement, but when it should be that step. Investing is important to retirement success, to making retirement possible, but really investing It's just if you have no cushion, no emergency fund, and are living paycheck to paycheck, you're building your future on shaky ground, especially if you jump into investing first.
While we know investing is essential for growing wealth, It's important that we lay the groundwork. And so we will be covering that in this episode. Saving $50 a month is great, but if it's going into an investment while you have no emergency fund, one unexpected expense could wipe you out. It's not easy to access investments. There's some cost to getting the money out. So we've got to make sure we have cash available close without having to any cost to cover those emergencies. What are the first steps you should take before investing? I have three steps to help you effectively invest without delay and without high costs. The first step, you start with an emergency fund. Now, I say that if you've been here around long enough, you know I talk about sinking funds.
Same thing. It's all about preparing for emergencies, job loss, whatever else. Because before anything else, before sending your money to investing, you need a safety net. It's important that you start building what I love to say, a mini emergency fund. You're going to create a certain amount where you feel comfortable and you can handle a small emergency. And while you're creating this, this is your only focus. This is your main savings. You are wanting to have this there to create value. stability, so that those unexpected expenses don't leave you all frazzled and not quite sure. Investing too early is going to cost you more than just doing things in the right order first. I know it can feel pressing to be like, well, everybody says I got to invest now and I got to invest early.
And that is true. But how is this going to cost you? I've already mentioned that putting money in investments, there's a cost in getting it out. A lot of individuals reach into the 401k loans for different reasons. But if it's for an emergency, you might have been running before you could walk. And taking an early withdrawal, you've got a 10% penalty plus taxes. It's not easy to make this be cash. It's going to cost you more. You've got to make sure that you create a decent cushion first. That word decent is for you to define and can vary from individual to individual. It's all about your circumstances. It's all about how much things cost in your world. And this is something I definitely help you explore in the Retirement Roadmap session.
And if you listened to my last episode, my client, she was able to save $2,500 in three months. By being able to follow this very similar plan of setting money aside, having it available to her, and not jumping in 100% to investing.
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Chapters
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