Retirement Planning
All of us love to postpone things for tomorrow. Be it a resolution, a household task, a visit to your friend…‘tomorrows’ kills many opportunities and make us losers unknowingly. One such thing for which you have to pay a heavy amount for postponing is financial planning.
We all love to see our wealth growing, but in our busy lives, many of us keep giving a second thought on our investment strategies or starting a specific financial planning for tomorrow. One of the most ignored aspect among Indians in financial planning is retirement planning. We save money for buying a house, for our children’s education, marriage and get drained out in retirement, where as in the West, retirement planning is the first priority.
So if you are one of those who have not thought about your retirement, start planning for it today. And here goes few tips.
Draft a Retirement Plan Today: Before starting out on retirement planning, it is imperative that you make a personalized retirement plan, keeping in mind your financial obligations, annual earnings and the kind of lifestyle you live. Many people often lead very reckless lives spending on unnecessary gadgets and electronic items etc. While their expensive lifestyle is manageable while they are earning, once the retire they find it increasingly hard to shift to a more conservative lifestyle. It is therefore imperative to understand your lifestyle and earnings and create a perfect retirement plans for your life.
Meet a Professional: If you don’t have sound knowledge about various financial instruments that works best for you, don’t hesitate to meet a relationship manager at your bank or a financial adviser to chalk out a retirement plan. Take out some time from your hectic life and do it today itself.
Retirement planning appears as a simple task, but a careful planning essential for having separate funds for your various goals. A professional assistance may help. It is essential to understand the quantum of money that would be sufficient for your retirement keeping into account your personal life, expenses, obligations and goals. Self planning can sometimes lead to disastrous results and it may sometimes be too late to bring in any possible changes to the plan.
Chalk out the Inflation Rates: If you are starting with the above two, just sit with your partner and make an assessment on the possible inflation rates, by the time you turn 60.
Say suppose, you are a 35 year old person now. You bought a bath soap for Rs.5/- when you were a child. Now you buy the same thing for Rs.40/- This is a simple eye opener which would make you think how much you would have to pay for other essentials when you turn 60! Just make a plan with it and you would not delay your retirement planning for tomorrow.
Inflation rates must always be considered for all retirement planning. With the rising cost of living with each passing year, the amount of money that may appear to be sufficient today may not be enough to offer a sustained living after 30 or 35 years. As a rule one must always cater towards having a 5% increment in prices each year on account of retail inflation especially for expenses related to essential commodities.
Take a Review of your Savings: Of course, you must have invested in various financial instruments like mutual funds, insurance, FD etc, but are you sure about how much you have made so far and are they enough? If you have not reviews your savings, take out sometime today, sit with your partner and review your monthly outflow. And analyse whether that will be sufficient or whether you should make your savings more effective.
A proactive retirement plan must be renewed and relooked at every couple of years to make sure the progress is on track.
The earlier one starts saving for retirement the better it is as one can not only ensure saving up a large sum of money but can also use high reward financial instruments toward retirement financial corpus. This gives the invested money a better chance to multiply and increment as per their invested financial instruments. Investing in high risk financial instruments like equities allow for greater returns compare to other investment options like government bonds and pension schemes. For those starting retirement planning late in life, safety first becomes the basic mantra and are not able to invest in high returns instruments like equity mutual funds and others.
It is imperative to have a retirement plan which works as risk reducing plan. The high risk investments must be gradually reduced with each passing year so that by the time the investor is near his or her desired goal, the quantum of investment is in secured financial instruments offering assured returns to the investor.