The U.S. government’s currency printing presses have been putting in overtime. Inflation fears lurk around every corner. Why? Because if too much money is chasing the same goods, the price of those goods goes up.
Gain Perspective
Think about it in this over-generalized, exaggerated way: Let’s say you have a garbage bag full of 500 $1 bills. If a gallon of milk costs $5, that’s going to cost five of your 500 $1 bills. Not a big deal right? You buy the gallon of milk and you hardly even notice. Now, think about it from the store’s perspective. If the store owners know you have 500 $1 bills, they also know you could easily spend 20 of them without blinking an eye. So they simply charge $20 for the gallon of milk. Ouch! Too much money chasing the same goods.
If you’re concerned about inflation as it relates to retirement, you know you’ll need much more money in retirement than you do today (that gallon of milk is going to cost more). If inflation is wildly out of control, then your money needs to earn wildly out-of-control returns (and then some) so that you will have enough money for milk in the future. That’s a scary prospect given the stock market roller coaster of late.
But what if you could reduce or eliminate a big expense in retirement so that you had more money available to spend on milk? That would mean you would need less money overall and those wildly out-of-control returns would be unnecessary. For many, that solution and that kind of planning and strategy exist. The inflation monster might be your friend. It might be what shows you the door to a tax-free retirement.