Want to Save Better for Retirement in 2026? 3 Key Moves to Make Now

The start of a new year is a good time to take stock of your financial goals and come up with a plan to meet them. And one of your goals may be to boost your retirement savings in 2026.

It's a good goal to have. The average Social Security benefit for retired workers today is only a little more than $2,000 a month. It's important to have a nice amount of savings to supplement those monthly benefits. So if you're looking to supercharge your retirement savings this year, here are three key moves to make.

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1. Get onto a budget

The nice thing about budgeting is that it helps you see where every dollar you earn is going. It's a good way to get a handle on your spending and carve out more room for retirement plan contributions.

You have different options for setting up a budget. One is to go really old school and list your expenses in a notebook. To take things up a notch tech-wise, you could also create a spreadsheet that lists your expenses.

To simplify the process even more, you may want to play around with a budgeting app. Some of these apps are able to sync to your bank and credit card accounts so you can track your spending seamlessly. And hey, the less work you have to do, the better, right?

2. Make your retirement plan contributions automatic

One big benefit of saving for retirement in a 401(k) plan is having your contributions come out of your paychecks directly. Granted, you're allowed to change your savings rate during the year. But if you commit to a certain contribution every month and don't change it, you're going to see that money land in your workplace retirement plan.

IRAs work differently. IRAs are not tied to a job, and so your contributions do not get deducted from your paychecks.

One big IRA trap savers tend to fall into is that they'll spend their income during the month and send extra money into retirement savings once their other expenses are taken care of. A much better approach is to pay your IRA first, before other expenses.

To that end, set up a recurring automatic IRA contribution so that every time you get paid, your IRA gets paid. You can start with a modest amount and increase it as you're able to. But if you want to boost your retirement savings this year, automating contributions starting in January is smart -- especially if you're getting a raise and can capitalize on that extra money.

3. Ensure your portfolio is working for you

Making steady contributions to an IRA or 401(k) plan is a good way to help your money grow this year. But so is investing wisely. And if you choose the right assets to invest your retirement savings in, you may find that your balance grows nicely, even if your contribution rate does not increase all that much.

Take a look at how you have your savings invested. If you're many years away from retirement, you should not have your money mostly in conservative assets, like bonds. You need to invest in stocks to fuel your savings and help that money grow from year to year.

If you're nervous to invest in the stock market, know that you can mitigate your risk by diversifying well. And an easy way to do that is to put your savings into an S&P 500 index fund or ETF. This allows you to invest in the 500 largest publicly traded companies, which are established businesses across a range of market sectors.

It's a great thing to pledge to save better for retirement in 2026. Make these moves so you can meet that goal and have something to celebrate by the time the year comes to an end.

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