Whenever you read advice about how to save for the future and retire in a financially secure position, they’ll all tell you to start saving money and cutting your spending. I’m not for a minute trying to suggest that you shouldn’t be doing that. Saving on your spending and putting money aside is a very important part of planning for retirement. However, hoarding all of your money isn’t always the best thing to do. There are ways that you can spend money now to make more in the future. It might seem counterproductive at the time but in the long term, it’s a smart move. These are the places that you should be putting your money right now.

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Mortgage Repayments

The average amount of time it takes people to pay off their mortgage is 25 years. That’s a long time and while you’re paying it off, you can’t do anything else with that money. But if you start making additional payments now, you can clear that debt a lot faster. Once you have, you can start putting the money you would have spent on mortgage repayments straight into a high interest savings account where it’s going to grow quickly. If you’re paying $300 a month into the mortgage, and you clear it five years early, you’ll have an extra $18,000 that you can put into savings, and that’s before you’ve even taken the interest into account.

Student Loans

Student loans are another long term debt that most people won’t clear for over 20 years. The interest on those things is also pretty high so the longer you have it, the more of your retirement fund is being eaten up. The repayments usually start out pretty low and most people just pay the minimum. What you should be doing is paying it off quicker, just like you did with your mortgage. In fact, you should be doing this with any debts that you have. It means that you’ll be a bit tight for money while you’re younger, but you’ll see a huge payout when you retire and you’ve got all of that extra cash to enjoy.

Pay For Home Repairs

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When you’re trying to build up money, spending a lot on home repairs doesn’t seem like a sensible move. However, if you neglect them then they’ll get worse and you’ll end up paying out more money to fix them when they get too bad. Making changes like replacing windows and doors can make the home way more energy efficient which means that you’ll make big savings on your energy bill each month. All of that extra cash can go straight into your retirement fund. Doing home repairs also increases the resale value of the house so if you decide to sell up later in life, you’ll have more cash.

Invest Your Money

Putting your cash into a high interest savings account is a good way to save up, but if inflation is higher than your interest rate, you’ll actually end up losing some value on that money. Overall, you’re still likely to make money but it won’t be a huge amount. The best way to see a healthy return on your money is to invest it wisely. There are all sorts of ways to do it like putting some money into a small business, or investing in stocks. Before you invest money anywhere, make sure that you do some good research and if you’re going to play the stock market, seek the advice of a professional broker so you don’t risk losing it all.

Education

The number of people with college degrees has risen drastically over the last decade. Although that is starting to slow, it does mean that when you’re going for promotions or asking for a pay rise, you often come up against other people that are more qualified than yourself. Going back into education in later life isn’t something that people are too keen on because of the cost. Leaving work and going back to college full time isn’t always the best idea and between the cost of tuition and loss of earnings, you’ll come out in a worse financial position. However, if you do online degrees and other training courses while you’re still working, you can reduce that financial impact. It will give you more chance to progress to higher salary positions with better benefits that are going to put you in a much better position when you retire.

Spending large amounts of money on these things might seem counterproductive, but if you think about the long term effects, it makes sense.