The thought of retirement brings varied emotions. Yes, there is the satisfaction of a life spent with working shoes on and work in itself is a redemption we know. There is also the eager anticipation of days which will be spent doing things we did not find time for earlier. Amidst all these, there is also the thought of the precariousness which lies ahead in terms of finances. Let us face it — we Australian retirees do not have enough in our retirement kitty to think of a decent post-retirement living. So what’s going wrong?
What is ailing our retirement plans?
Is it the lack of government initiatives, weak economy, or some personal debility of ours? Let us figure out if the last one is the case. A majority of us are leaving things for the last moment; I mean we only get serious about our retirement once we turn 45 or 50. That’s pretty late in the day for retirement planning ladies and gentlemen!
Baby boomers are not well equipped to tackle retirement
It is well known how the baby boomers are falling terribly short of having amassed a decent amount for themselves. Women are faring even poorer than men who are about 6 times short of the near $350,000 needed as post-retirement expenses. All this is happening because the baby boomers in the prime of their lives failed to imagine a day when they would be old. Only if we paid due emphasis on this evolutionary reality, we would know that the day of retirement, however far it might seem, is a day we are moving towards at the rate of 60 minutes an hour.
How to plan for retirement wisely
So how best to plan for retirement? Get yourself up to the task early. Reduce your debt as much as possible and club your debts so that it is best consolidated. To add, start thinking of cash as the only means of expense and start treating your creditworthiness as an invalid term you would only fall back upon for making some investment.
Track your expenses and prepare budget judiciously. While there are certain liberties we can take from time to time, there are others we would much rather not. There is also a solemn need for making the right kind of investments. A mix of income generating investments and growth investments is what we should stick to from a fairly early time.
What we need to do is to exercise ourselves off the ghost of retirement and look towards this stage of our lives with enterprise and our pocket full of dough.
How are you shaping up for your retirement?
