Starting a new job can be an extremely exiting, yet daunting time. You find yourself faced with learning new policies and procedures, getting to know new people (and remember their names) within your organisation. It’s very much like that first day of school; and to add to the mix, your boss decides to give you a tray full of paperwork to read, fill out and return within a specified period of time. Then you discover that somewhere entrenched within those papers are a few documents babbling on about pensions, and pension plans etc. At the age of 21, you’re young, vibrant, and to be honest you’re probably thinking of retirement as being light years away from now, so in all fairness you can just put these papers to one side; under the pile even. You’re all about making some money for the finer things in life, not saving it and worrying about retirement, that’s over 40 years away. You can worry about your pension when the time approaches right? Well not quite; depending on the type of life you’re expecting after retirement.
To rely on a state pension for some of us may indeed be substantial, but for others, may not be. The reality of solely relying on a state pension is that you will probably just have to settle for the basic things in life. However, why settle for minimal/ basic living standards, when you can take a proactive approach to secure a more than sufficient’ life after employment?
Preparing for your retirement should come a long time before those approaching years. It should come as soon as you find yourself settled in a job that you can actually stand. The kind of job where you don’t have to hit the snooze button 5 times each morning, before realizing you’re going to be late if you hit it one more time. The fact of the matter is that the best way to prepare for retirement is to start early. The following are a few examples of ways your retirement can be prepared for, where the outcome could result in a nice relaxing life after work that’s regularly filled with holidays, travel and other forms of enjoyment.
As the world’s economy is drastically becoming more and more uncertain, it is important to lay down your foundations as early as possible, in order to prepare yourself for when that day finally arrives. One of the best ways to do this is to make the best of some of the few benefits a government will let you have. One way of doing this is to open up an Individual Savings Account or ISA as it is commonly referred as. The benefits of doing so, is that a government will allow you to save up to a certain amount of cash tax free each year. Therefore if you start early, by the time you’re ready to retire, you’ll have a decent amount of cash sitting there waiting for you.
Another way to prepare for that well deserved retirement could be to invest in property as soon as, or as early as you possibly can. A few properties in your home country or even around the world could generate a nice income while your still working, which in turn can cashed in after retirement. Once your mortgage is paid off on those properties, you’ll also be left with capital that you can also cash in at any time.
Although these ideas may seem somewhat ambitious for some, if not most of us, the general point of this article is to indicate 2 things. Firstly, the earlier you prepare for retirement the better off you will be in the long run, and secondly, it also highlights and emphasizes the need to save in an uncertain economy. In 10, 20 or even 40 years time, who knows whether or not there will be enough money in the pot for us all to benefit from a state pension? Let’s not put ourselves in that position, let’s take a proactive approach and save what we can. The general rule is that the more money we invest in our futures, and the earlier we invest it, the better our return.