Have You Saved Enough for Retirement

Have You Saved Enough for RetirementHave you saved enough for retirement? Most people don’t know and do not know how to even figure it out! This is the sad reality and one of the things that this website and writer are trying to help consumers with. You can meet with a financial adviser, but that typically costs money. Unless you have some kind of investment portfolio, they probably will not want to spend too much time with you. What can you do to answer the question, have you saved enough for retirement? The answer is fairly simple and we will attempt to help you with  this question.

Have You Saved Enough for Retirement

Start by assessing where your income will come from during retirement. Do you have social benefits, old age pensions, medical benefits, company pension, government pensions and any savings that you may have. Add all of the sources of income you will have during retirement to gain some idea of the income available to you during retirement.

Also take a look at how long these various incomes will continue, whether they will increase or not and how safe they are. Government pensions are often indexed based on the inflation rate. Other pensions may not increase as much. Savings income will change as well based on the type of savings you have and how they are invested. Always try to preserve your original investment and just live off the income.

Next compare this number to your current level of income to see if you have enough to live on during retirement. If your income during retirement is less than your current level of income don’t despair. You will need to make changes, but maybe not as much as you might at first think.

The next step is very important. What are you going to do about the situation you find yourself in? Can you save more money, can you reduce your expenses, can you share expense with a family member etc?During retirement some expenses will naturally be reduced. Commuting and clothing costs will certainly change. Asses how your expenses will change compared to what they are now.

Develop a plan to address this problem and begin working towards developing the income you need to have in retirement. Or perhaps how you can reduce your expenses overall.

Note that your savings are very important, both the amount and how you invest it. Always invest diversely, live off the income it generates to maintain the principle during your retirement. If you spend the principle, it is gone and there may not be anyway to replace it. Spend the principle carefully and wisely if you have to. It has to last a lifetime during retirement.

Save

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.