Have You Started A Retirement Fund? Act Now
The decision to start planning for your retirement should be started as early as possible, especially if you want to retire early so that you can still be fit and healthy enough to enjoy it.
It is important to ensure your retirement plan stays on track so that you have sufficient funds to live life to the full.
Effective Planning
Evaluate your financial situation so that you can start planning a retirement fund, you need to get a baseline to work from. Take stock of where any savings are held and if the product is chosen is working effectively.
Look carefully at your incomings and outgoings to try and identify areas that you could make savings. Are you a homeowner – if so how long do you have left on your mortgage and can you afford to pay extra so that it is completely paid off by the time you retire?
It is important to identify any debts such as credit cards and loans, try to make a plan for you to pay them off as quickly as possible. Do you pay into a pension fund, is it enough and are your employers contributing?
Once you have a baseline to work from you can draw up a plan to save and invest enough money for you to retire. It is helpful to have an age in mind by which you would like to retire so that you can divide your plan into manageable annual chunks.
Invest and Save
Investing your money is by far the most profitable way of saving for retirement, this is because returns are potentially high. Investing is not without risk though, so it is important to take advice from investment experts such as Chris Pivik who can give advice on where to invest your well-earned savings.
In fact, even the pension that you pay into through work is an investment, it is worth checking that it is performing at expected levels.
Other potential investments could be in the form of stocks and shares, maybe consider building an investment portfolio so that any downfalls can be cushioned.
Try to develop a method of saving by allocating a proportion of your monthly income into a high-interest savings account. The benefit of a savings account over investments is that they allow easy access to your money. A mixture of both would be ideal.
Property
Owning a property is a great investment as value normally rises over time. It is essential to have paid off your mortgage by the time you retire, you then have the potential of releasing some of the capital in your property by downsizing if you wish. You will also have the benefit of no rent to pay in retirement.
It may be an option to consider investing in property for the rental market or overseas for the holiday market. This will give you a much-appreciated income during retirement.
Finally, the key to successful retirement is all about planning, the earlier the better. This will allow you to enjoy retirement without financial hardship.
Have you started planning for your retirement? What are you doing to see that you have a successful retirement? Share your thoughts and comments below.
Cheers!
