Federal Retirees Well Situated, but Could Still Benefit from Cost Savings Big and Small

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Five money saving tips for retirees! Seven ways to survive the upcoming recession! Perhaps you’ve been seeing more articles with titles like this over the last several months – I know that I have. I’ve seen them in AARP publications. I’ve seen them in newspapers. I’ve seen them pop up on my social media feed.

These articles suggest many things we can do in order to be financially secure for the future. Some of them are common sense, big picture, actions that we have written about previously; thinks like:

Setting goals for your saving and spending.
Establishing an emergency fund.
Automating your saving through payroll deduction and direct debit.
Paying yourself first by making savings a line item in your budget.

However, you also see other suggestions that delve deeper into the weeds of saving and spending.

  • Setting goals for your saving and spending.
    • Establishing an emergency fund.
    • Automating your saving through payroll deduction and direct debit.
    • Paying yourself first by making savings a line item in your budget.

However, you also see other suggestions that delve deeper into the  weeds of saving and spending.

• Using coupons and shopping apps for grocery and other shopping.
• Stopping smoking. Recently I noticed that the price of a pack of name brand cigarettes was over $7. At the time I quit smoking, you could  get a carton for a little over $10.
• Cancelling subscriptions that you do not use.
• Reviewing subscriptions that you still use to see if there are less expensive options.
• Taking a staycation instead of traveling.
• Donating plasma to a blood bank that pays for it.
• Asking for discounts. In some cases, senior discounts begin as young as age 50. By the time you reach age 65 there are a lot of senior   discounts available. Many companies and organizations offer discounts to active-duty military and veterans.

We all should take the big picture actions; they will put us in a good financial place as we advance in our career and ultimately retire. The smaller items are indeed ways we can save more money and/or make our dollars go further, but we, as federal employees and retirees, find that we may not need to need to take these steps. That doesn’t mean that these lesser items won’t help us save money, it just means that many of us find ourselves in a position where these actions are not necessary because we are well situated financially.

Federal employees have much more job security than those in the private sector. It is unlikely that we will lose our jobs due to market forces, mergers, etc. We don’t need as big an emergency fund as do most private sector employees. Click HERE to read more.