Take the Save10 Challenge

This could be the day that everything turned around. It’s the day you mark in your journal to your future self as the day you started to think about her, cherish her, dream for her and, quite literally, pay for her to live that she might not have to work. That she might not have to worry.

Sign up for 10% today. If you have a retirement plan at work, call up HR. Ask them how you can increase your savings to 10% (not including what the company puts in). Don’t have a retirement plan? That’s ok, here’s how you can save. Swimming in debt? Put 10% into debt repayment.

Retirement is not only far away, sometimes we just assume it’s not possible. The media tells us that. So many baby boomers just hit retirement age, yet retirement was not available to them. The choice: keep working, retire into poverty, or be supported by family.

But retirement is possible. But you have to start early, and you have to do it regularly. You can’t think about it. You can’t take it out. You have to set your retirement savings automatically. And forget it.

I have asked thousands of people to take this Save10 challenge. Many do it. They come back and say that somehow it just “worked.” Some had to work out a budget and run numbers and reshuffle bills and spending to make it work. But in the end, I have rarely heard of someone backing it down.

It’s those who never try who I worry about. And there is every reason to put it off. Expensive childcare, student loans, house payment, car payment, etc. You don’t get paid enough. After this vacation. Another one is working too hard and needing to enjoy life now. For every reason I hear, I know this. Nothing will be different in 6 months. No one wakes up and says, “Oh good, life just got financially easier. Saving is easy now.” I also know that no one regrets saving for retirement. Every person who doesn’t have enough saved will have some variation of regret:  “I wish I could go back. I know I could have scraped a little aside.”

A lot of people have urged me to somehow back off the message in respect to those who can’t save. Let me just say, I have the most intense compassion for those who don’t make enough money to live on. They literally do not make enough money to buy diapers for babies and put food on the table. One of the most important three years of my life was serving the homeless in Arizona. We had a shelter attached to the employment center I worked for, and families could skip the line that extended blocks for a safe, hot meal. It was devastating. We must change this.

We have to fight for higher wages, education, training, and I hope to use many of the lessons learned with Save10 to do that.

But we can’t wait to ask, expect, demand that we who do make enough to survive save now, that we save when expenses seem like they already cut to the bone. The reason is because no one is standing there at the finish line with bags of money to help us retire. It is the cruelest reality. I have stood there at the finish line for people who have lived great lives, worked hard, seen their kids go to college but then have nothing at the end, nothing at the finish line. My advice at that point is sought for some kind of secret or trick or investment that might change something. But there is nothing that can be done.

Last week at church we read the parable of the lost sheep. Even for non-believers, it’s an incredible story. The shepherd leaves the 99 sheep in the wilderness to go seek the lost one. Hannah Hooker made the case that perhaps we are missing the point when we read the story as the shepherd just being called to find the sheep. Maybe the shepherd was responsible for not letting that sheep get lost in the first place.

This is Save10, and I am asking you, the woman aged 18-30, to save 10% of whatever you make and prevent you from being like my generation (gen x and millennial) that is already lost. We have kicked the savings can down the road, and for us to retire on time we might have to save more than 10% to catch up.

And this isn’t just about you. I want you to go out and save. I want you to do this for your future self. But we also have to help our sisters do the same thing. We have a responsibility to get into each other’s business when it comes to retirement. This is not judgement on spending habits or the size of the house. To each her own. Gosh, I have every guilty spending issue there is probably that I personally have to work on. Why would I cast judgement on someone else?

No, we need to see that the inability to retire is not something that happens quickly and can’t be fixed quickly. It’s a slow burning crisis that doesn’t feel like a crisis until it is too late.

So we have to fix it now, fix it early. We have to go on a lunch date with a girlfriend and say, “Hey, are you saving for retirement? I have just taken the save10 challenge for myself and really want you to do the same thing. It’s hard to see the paycheck go down, but I know it’s the right thing. Plus, all my friends are doing it, and we can commiserate about budgeting and meal planning and cutting excess expenses together.”

Save 10% for yourself. Then go share it with a friend, 2 friends, 10 friends. Imagine the collective power in that.

Take the Save10 Challenge here: bit.ly/save10challenge