How To Start Planning For Retirement?
It is necessary that you start decades in advance if you wish to plan financially for your retirement. Nowadays, with the expanded life span, most people spend about 20 years or more in retirement stage. These years might be called golden years, but they can prove to be expensive as well. For such reasons it is best to prepare for this phase of life by indulging in financial planning, preferably with an expert to provide you sound advice.
Time period of planning
As any financial expert will point out, financial planning for retirement needs to be at least twenty to thirty years before retiring. Many are subjected to asset test for age pension that helps one to ascertain how much funds they will have in their pension fund and what kind of lifestyle that can help sustain them. Those who have a forward thinking attitude usually start to save money from their early years. In such cases putting aside money regularly in pension funds or insurance schemes becomes helpful to have a targeted payout after a few decades. When one approaches a financial planner to help them plan for saving for retirement, they are usually asked to project the amount of money they would need in the future and the kind of lifestyle they would look at leading. Visit this link http://www.financialplanningqld.com.au/services/centrelink-age-pension.aspx for more info on asset test for age pension.
Help from money consultants
As predicting future costs and earning potentials might be difficult, a financial advisor can help one in the planning process. For instance, they have the tools at hand that can help customers understand how high living costs would rise in a certain region or country. This in turn will help them identify the kind of funds they would need to have with them within a certain time period. Accordingly, it helps them arrive at investment policies that can aid in such wealth accumulation. As there are several investment policies and instruments in the market, a financial advisor not only helps a customer ascertain the amount they need to have in hand by the time they retire as well as make suggestions as per risk appetite of the customers. There are long term investment tools that have a conservative approach towards risks and offer moderate interest accumulation vis a vis higher risk instruments that offer greater returns. In order to understand what investment policy would be right for one, it is best to refer to a financial expert who specializes in retirement planning. As investment products are segregated into different categories, choosing a retirement fund to invest in should be done carefully and with the advice and knowledge of an expert.