Early Retirement Planning Makes Sense
One of the many myths of retirement is that you only have to think about retirement when you are approaching retirement age.
If you believe that, then you are making a big mistake!
Yet many people also put away planning for retirement because they believe its too cumbersome. They then put it off until they are forced to.
Again, this is a huge mistake.
If you thought retirement planning was a daunting exercise, then consider if you had to prepare for early retirement especially with little or no notice.
The shock of having to think about retirement when you are least prepared causes many types of challenges.
This is why we have prepared the video below to help you with Retirement Planning And Career Transition.
A lot of people experience emotional and financial challenges after they retire which sometimes also negatively affects their health. It is therefore not uncommon for people to even experience post-retirement depression. Click here if you would like to learn more about strategies to handle post-retirement adjustments.
One major mistake that further complicates matters for new retirees is making bad financial decisions. Unfortunately, many people rarely know beyond basic finance while in employment. The result is they are thus not prepared to handle financial decisions that sometimes could put at risk all their life savings.
Solid financial planning is at the heart of every good retirement plan. And just as it is is for any good plan, the more time and effort you put into it the better your outcome.
We can also add that to make a good plan requires quality information. That is why we are giving you the tools here to make sure that you have all the information you need to plan for your retirement.
Believe me, there is nothing as good as learning from some of us who have been many years in retirement.
What is more? You can get to share the benefits of our knowledge and experience without going through the pains.
Retirement Planning Tools
Now that have you have acquired relevant knowledge about preparing for your retirement how do you use it?
In this section, we will introduce you to some of the important tools we use for effective retirement planning. Though the list below is definitely not exhaustive, it is a good place to start your retirement planning journey.
1. Retirement Planning Calculators
Retirement calculators are an indispensable tool for anyone planning for retirement. This is even more important if you are nursing the idea of early retirement.
If you are thinking about early retirement, you would need to decide when to retire, how much savings would be required to retire and based on what kind of lifestyle you would want to live during retirement. In addition to these, the decision of where to live, how you want to manage your healthcare needs are all issues that affect how you retire.
But what do all these decisions have in common? The answer is it all depends on how much money you have access to. Whether its early or regular retirement, money will always be at the centre of your decision to retire.
There are three types of financial calculators to assist you in planning for your retirement. These are the most popular and most requested and so we have selected them here for:
a) Retirement Age Calculator
The very first question that comes to mind when we think about retirement is age.
Given how much money we currently have in your retirement account and how much we plan to continue to invest we would like to know at what age we can retire. This calculator will create an investment schedule and charts for you to see at what age you can retire.
You also need this calculator if you are just starting to plan for your retirement and you want to decide on how much to save towards your retirement in order to achieve a certain financial goal at retirement.
Click here to use the retirement age calculator and see how soon you can retire.
b) Retirement Savings Calculator
Many people dream of a retirement spent in a beach that is sunny all year round.
Not a bad dream at all ..if you can afford it. Indeed that is the issue –affordability.
If you are already retired the chances are that you probably don’t have too much wiggle room to change how much you now have at your disposal. Of course with proper management and some shrewd investment it is possible to grow any modest amount to reach your dream …but that is if you have enough time left… After all we are talking about someone who has probably already retired and perhaps has spent more years than what is left.
However, if you are planning to retire, one of the questions that may determine how you do your planning would be how much you plan to have when you retire.
A retirement savings calculator would help you determine how much you need to save or invest each month to reach your retirement goal. In other words, if you planned to have $5m at the time of retirement, this calculator would help you determine how much you should be saving and investing now based on what you currently earn in order to reach that goal.
Click here to use the retirement savings calculator and see how much you need to start saving and investing monthly if you are to achieve your retirement financial goal.
c) Retirement Nest Egg Calculator
Anyone involved in a retirement savings plan is always curious to know how much has accrued at any point in time.
This is probably the first thing to check once anybody considers retirement. How much do you have in your nest egg account? This calculator will help determine how much will I have when I retire assuming you have been faithfully contributing regular investment amounts to your retirement fund. This calculator apart from answering that niggling question also creates a detailed schedule with projected date based investments and charts.
Click here to use the retirement nest egg calculator and see how much you would have accumulated in your retirement account by the time you retire.
2. Retirement Planning Groups & Fora
It never hurts to learn about a subject by joining a group of like-minded people.
Joining a retirement interest group or forum is not an exception. Many years ago these groups existed as Yahoo Groups but now there are a number of online fora and Facebook Groups dedicated to matters of retirement. Some of these are listed here many of which are free and open to join. There are a few though that are paid groups.
Retirement interest groups (Free):
- Early Retirement Forum
- American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) Online Forum
- Retirement Forum for seniors
- Canadian Money Forum
- The Globe Retirement Forum
Facebook Discussion Groups
3. Blogs & Articles
Here are a few retirement interest blogs and articles that can help you with more information.
4. Retirement Planning Books
There are a number of very experienced people out there who are quite versed in issues and matters of retirement. These could be CPAs, lawyers and tax consultants.
Some of these people have written books and documented their knowledge. Presented below are some of the relevant books covering different aspects of the subject of planning for retirement and early retirement.
Retirement Planning FAQ
- Why do retirement planning?
Retirement planning is an essential part of the preparation for life after employment or work career. Anyone interested in a relatively comfortable life of retirement must invest in retirement planning in order to realize that goal.
- When to start retirement planning?
Although it is never too late to start retirement planning, those who are most successful are those who start as soon as they secure paid employment or if they are self-employed as soon as their business becomes profitable. It is never too early to start planning for retirement
- Why do we need retirement financial planning?
The whole goal of retirement planning is centrered around ensuring sufficient funds to live on when one is not in a position to work and earn money later in life. Except one plans to be financially dependent during retirement, it, therefore, behoves on anyone who would retire someday to engage in financial retirement planning during your earning years
- How much is my retirement plan worth?
One can determine how much your retirement plan worth by using a retirement nest egg calculator
