TD Ameritrade : Starting Early, Planning Smart and Doing it All Over Again

"Repetition is mother of all learning, the father of action, which makes it the architect of accomplishment." Zig Ziglar's celebrated quote holds true as much for financial well-being as for learning and self-motivation.

April is Financial Literacy Month and TD Ameritrade is reminding investors that they can become architects of their own financial well-being. One ways is by recognizing repetition as a framework for pursuing long-term investment goals.

Making regular automatic contributions to an investment account, such as an IRA, can have a big impact on future financial well-being. In fact, a survey released revealed correlations between people who get in the habit of automating their investing and entering retirement financially prepared. Contributing small amounts regularly can be more fruitful than investing larger sums infrequently.

According to the survey, Baby Boomers who reported being financially prepared for retirement were significantly more likely to make regular, and oftentimes automatic, contributions to their retirement accounts. Nearly 74 percent of them made the decision to arrange regular, automatic contributions from their wages, which ultimately helped them reach their financial goals.

We can take a lesson from the successful Baby Boomers, now entering a comfortable retirement, who shared that forming good repetitive financial behaviors served as a key ingredient in their preparation for retirement, according to the survey. Baby Boomers ranked budgeting and saving regularly as the top factor affecting their retirement preparedness, followed by participating in their company's retirement plan and properly managing their spending.  

Starting early, planning smart, and doing it all over again is one formula for financial fitness. Making the commitment to invest is the hard part, but setting up automatic contributions helps make that commitment a lot easier to honor going forward.

Zig Ziglar is separate from and not affiliated with TD Ameritrade, which is not responsible for his content and commentary.