Procrastination on Retirement Planning (Read: Are you vicitm of Procrastination)
Life takes its own course and from the poorest to the wealthiest, no one gets spared. “Everyone grows older”. We get older every day, without realizing. However, we assume that old age is never going to touch us.
If you are young, retirement may be the last thing on your mind. But if you think you have a long way to go for to plan for retirement, think again. It is never too early to prepare for retirement, especially if you want to maintain the same standard of living that you would have got accustomed to by then.
Pre-Retirement Planning
Retirement planning means making sure you will have enough money to live on after retiring from work. Should be the best period of your life, when you can literally sit back and relax? To achieve a hassle-free retired life, you need to make prudent investment decisions during your working life.
The future depends to a great extent on the choices you make today. Right decisions with the help of proper planning, taken at the right time will assure smile and success at the time of retirement. The key to a financially independent future is “sooner the better”. Cautious investors not only save, they save early and regularly. The catch is to make the power of compounding work one’s benefit.
Let’s assume that you are a 35 year old, earning Rs.3 lakh per annum.
Your salary grows at 5% per annum and you plan to retire after 25 years. Under these circumstances, assuming your post-retirement requirement would be 60% of your last annual income (Rs.10 lakh approx).
You would need about Rs.6 lakh per annum after retirement. To achieve this, you need a retirement corpus of Rs.75 lakh assuming you earn a return of 5% per annum over a period of 20 years.
To meet this goal, you would have to invest more than Rs.9,000 per month at 7% per annum for the next 25 years. Inflation and tax implications have not been considered for simplicity.
Saving and investing regularly makes a big difference at the time of retirement. Investing at regular intervals builds your retirement fund over time and helps you to minimize risk and gives a tension free retirement-a time to pursue your hobbies, fulfil your dreams and passions.
Apprehension on Retirement
Retirement should be kept as a top priority because; if one does not keep it at the top one might end up depending on one’s children, which probably no one would relish. People frequently underestimate of this transition. Retirement planning is not just about working on numbers, it is about psychological trauma. This usually happens upon reaching a determined age, when physical conditions do not allow the person to work anymore.
High percentage of people die during their first year of retirement .One of the reasons being psychological trauma. A sense of feeling that you’re a worn out individual and should be placed in the corner of the house sitting idle most of the time. Retirement is the point where a person is not in any kind of employment/ business /occupation.
The following apprehensions can be viewed as normal part of ageing.
• Decreased cognitive capacity
• Increased depression
• Increased fears of illness
• Increased agitation
• Decreased performance speed
Prepare Psychologically
WHAT IS YOUR ATTITUDE TOWARDS RETIREMENT? Ask yourself, Is it an ending, a beginning or both?
Prepare yourself for your family changes such as:
• How will you renegotiate the division of household chores?
• What activities will you do jointly and individually?
• How will you set limits and boundaries around your new found free ‘time?
• What care giving tasks will you have to assume?
• Are you meeting your own needs as well as those of others? Prepare yourself for your social changes such as:• With whom you will keep in touch?
• From whom do you receive support?
• To whom do you provide support?
• How do you plan to meet new friends?
• How will you keep in touch with old friends and former work colleagues?
Few ways to stay active
Make Physical activity
Meet Friends and help grandkids
Go on a Holiday and Social work
Use your skills and pen them
Join courses such as club membership, NGO, Teaching, Marriage Bureau or start some activity in your locality.
Estate Planning with Retirement Planning
Estate planning is the process of disposing of an estate. On retirement, you may have fixed assets such as House/Flat/Land/Ornaments and liquid assets such as provident fund, gratuity, fixed deposits or leave encashment and other savings etc.
Before the day of your retirement, you should pay all dues, outstanding bills and outstanding loans. Discuss and achieve common consensus amongst Sons/ Daughter in-laws to dispose of your house/flat/land and sell the ornaments in your life time and encash it and divide liquid assets equally and nominate respective heirs. But do not nominate minors.
“Retired is being twice tired, I have thought first tired of working then tired of not”- Richard Armour
Suresh Kumar Narula is founder and Principal Financial Planner at Prudent Financial Planners. He has earned the professional CERITIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER and got registered with SEBI as Investment Advisor. He writes on personal and financial planning articles and got published in Dainik Bhaskar, Business Bhaskar and The Financial Planner’s Guild, India. He is also a member of Financial Planner’s Guild India ( An association of practicing SEBI registered Investment advisers) to create awareness about Financial Planning in general public, promote professional excellence and ensure high quality practice standards. Suresh received his an M.com from Himachal Pardesh University and an MFC from Punjab University, Chandigarh. He can be reached at info@prudentfp.in