Retirement is an essential consideration for any Australian, regardless of age. However, if you don’t plan your retirement correctly, you leave yourself at risk for financial challenges like lack of income, increased expenses on healthcare costs and long-term savings damaged by inflation.
Starting good financial habits as soon as possible can significantly improve your retirement plans and protect you from the risk of experiencing financial hardship in your later years – and you don’t need to wait to begin.
So, what must you do for financial wealth and longevity? Simple. Start your retirement plan now.
The retirement landscape is continually changing
Many factors are impacting the retirement landscape in Australia, such as:
– An ageing population
– Rising costs of living and inflation
– Changes to our superannuation system
– The changing nature of work
The traditional pathway from career to retirement has changed dramatically over the past decades, with more and more people needing to work past their preferred retirement age just to stay afloat.
With no crystal ball to determine the future or what your retirement might look like, creating a solid retirement plan is the best step to build financial longevity.
Why should you start planning now?
For many Australians, both young and old, retirement planning requires understanding, patience and being realistic. It typically takes a long time to accumulate the wealth needed to retire comfortably; many only consider it once they’re in their early to late 50s.
You can avoid the last-minute panic and build a better financial mindset today by shifting your perspective: your retirement plans might be far away, but you don’t know what will happen between then and now.
The earlier you begin actively creating and working towards a retirement plan, the more wealth you will accumulate to support yourself.
Set your retirement goals
Once you know the importance of thinking about your retirement long-term, what do you do next? There’s so much information available about effective ways to build personal wealth or investment strategies that will provide the most significant return by retirement age.
The sheer amount of information becomes a disservice when there’s too much to wade through!
So start small. We like to encourage our clients to do this by setting retirement goals.
For younger people, this may be difficult to plan for two or three decades away, and your goals might change over the years, but it will get you started on the right path, which is the most important thing.
Here are some valuable retirement goals to kickstart your retirement planning:
– Have a comfortable nest egg
– Clear your debts (including your mortgage!)
– Have an emergency fund that will cover at least six months of living expenses
– Maintain your lifestyle without needing to cut back on the things you enjoy
– Travel!
– Pursuing a long-term passion or hobby, such as writing a book or giving back to your community through volunteer work
Just because you’ve stopped working doesn’t mean you’ll stop living life on your terms, but that won’t always be free to do.
No matter what your goals are, establish them as the first step to your longevity plan.
Support your long-term plan with short-term actions
Aside from setting goals, considering your retirement plan might make you feel useless. It’s hard enough to think about the next few decades, let alone plan for them.
But there are absolutely things you can start doing right now to build towards those goals.
These include:
– Maximising your superannuation contributions
– Establishing and maintaining a clear investment strategy
– Starting a savings plan
– Setting up debt reduction plans and working towards clearing debts such as credit cards, cars or personal loans
Don't leave your retirement plan too late
Planning for retirement can be nerve-wracking, but getting started as soon as possible will leave you in a far better place than if you were to bury your head in the sand and leave it as a problem for Future You to deal with.
You don’t need to do it alone, even if you can’t imagine possibly planning for retirement in whatever circumstance you’re currently in. To give Future You the best chance at a comfortable retirement, contact us today to access our support.