learning about the stock market

I am a teacher and as most of us say, a life long learner. This summer and last I decided I would have a lousy retirement if I retired like most teachers at 60 because I'll need to live off of about 26k a year. Who can live off that? Sure, I'll have my 403b, but due to the fact I make an uncomfortable salary, I haven't been able to put that much money in it. This will not be a boo-hoo blog about how teachers are being treated unfairly, but more of a step by step process of how I learn, make mistakes, reflect, and cry while trying to learn the stock market. I think that a lot of people are in my position...realizing if you don't figure it out now, you'll be living off government entitlements if there are any, and if there are not any entitlements, eating and living off your kids. How old are you? I'm 46, so I figure I have 14 years to get comfortable with a retirement. How many years do you have? And don't say "I plan on working till I drop dead!" Do you really want to do that? If not...let's get to learning together. The first thing you have to do is see how much money you will have for retirement if you keep going at the rate you are going today. I'll be much better off if I retire at 70 than if I retire at 60, but I don't want to teach a bunch of hormonal 7th graders into my 60's. So I have set my retirement age at 60. Take the time and think about how old you want to be when you retire. This means I'll get the following: Teacher retirement system: 26k a year 403b: total at 60 is 50k (49920 to be exact based on a 7 percent interest rate) That's it!!! What did you get? If this is the first time you looked at your finances you probably realized it's not much different. Most people will receive a social security check and a 401k. Can you live off of that? I can't. So I have decided to take charge of my finances and figure out how I can retire at 60 comfortably. The first thing I need you to do...homework if you will, is figure out how much money you need to live when you retire. I can live off of 50k after my personal taxes have been paid, and that's modest. I plan on living to 100. According to my calculations, I need to save 2m in 16 years. If I saved every penny of my salary for the next 30 years I still couldn't touch that. So I need to figure out how I can take my modest amount of money and assets and turn it into 2m or something close to it. Figure out your simple numbers and join me again tomorrow. We'll begin putting ourselves on a budget that has the ability to save 15% of our money for our retirement. Don't give up, we can do this. I cannot guarantee we'll get rich, but putting our brains together and figuring it out, we'll do better than the path we're on.