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When Is The Right Time To Plan For Retirement?


Retirement carries strong connotations with the feeling that you’ve reached the end of something. It’s the time in your life where you stop working, so lots of people can feel like it’s the closing of a book. In reality, you should look at your retirement as the start of another chapter in life. Many people enjoy a ‘second’ life after retirement, doing all the things they didn’t have time to do for decades. 

Naturally, you probably won’t retire until you’re in your 60s. This begs the question, when is the right time to start planning for your retirement? Some people think you should start thinking about it when you’re in your 40s, others suggest your mid-50s are the ideal time. Both sets of people are wrong, the correct time is when you get your first full-time job!

Yep, the moment you start working and earning money, you should plan for retirement. It sounds crazy, but there’s a reason for this: the earlier you plan, the longer you have to save money. If someone starts planning for retirement at 20, they’ve got an extra 20 years worth of savings to call upon than someone who starts at 40. Hypothetically, say you saved the small amount of $1000 each year, that’s an extra $20k to your pension. 

If you haven’t already started saving for retirement, here’s what you should do:

Research your pension options

There’s a high chance you have technically started saving for retirement if you have a job. This is because your employer may provide a 401k, which is an employer-contributed retirement fund. Both you and the employer contribute to the fund, saving money over the years.

However, you should also look into private pensions as you can often save even more money through them. There’s a lot of info in this post that talks about specific pension funds and how you can use them to maximize your retirement savings. The correct fund for you largely depends on how much you earn, and how much you’re willing to save. 

Make investments

A pension shouldn’t be the only thing you rely on to save money for retirement. You should also have some investments under your belt, slowly gaining value as you work. Property is the best investment to have, mainly because it’s also useful. Loads of people will buy a house when they’re young, then sell it as they retire. At this stage, any kids you have will probably already live by themselves, so you can downsize to a smaller property in a different location. You’ll sell the home for a big profit, buy a cheaper one, and have thousands of extra dollars to fuel your retirement. 

See, it’s not that hard to plan for retirement. The hardest thing is finding the right pensions and investments to choose. Once this is done, it’s just a case of sitting back and letting your money grow. If you want, you can also use this time to set some personal goals for your career. Do you have anything you want to achieve before you retire? It won’t impact your finances, but it can be a nice thing to aim for to give your working life more purpose!





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