The 4 Facets Of Good Retirement Planning: Do You Have Them Covered?
People tend to think that retirement planning consists of where you want to live, and how much money you can stuff in a savings account. Well, that is okay, but you may find yourself living hand-to-mouth when you are eighty. Retirement planning services exist to teach consumers how to plan ahead, and how to make sure you are not stuck stocking grocery store shelves or flipping burgers when you should be finished with work, period. Furthermore, there are four facets to good retirement planning. Do you know and have all four facets covered?
1. Money
People are living a decade to three decades longer than previous generations. That means you need to plan ahead and have at least twenty years' worth of liquid assets to cover medications, healthcare costs, food, housing, transportation, electricity, gas (propane or natural, as applicable to your home), mortgage payments (if your home is still not paid off), and anything else you might want or need. Retirement planning professionals actually have special calculators for this, and they can reconfigure needed sums of money for inflation too.
2. Investments
It is not enough to have money in savings. In fact, savings accounts are practically a joke because the interest rates on this banking product never produce enough interest to even pay what the IRS taxes you for saving! If you just want to put your money somewhere for safekeeping, then a savings account is great. If you want your money to make more money for you, you have to invest. A retirement planning specialist or investment expert can show you how.
3. End-of-Life Expenses
Leave no expenses for your family to worry about. End-of-life expenses for a wake, a funeral, an urn or casket, a burial plot or cremation, etc., can easily be paid for in advance. In fact, the minute you retire, you can make these arrangements with a funeral director and then make monthly payments on everything until it is paid in full.
4. Luxury Items
What makes life worth living when you finally have all the time in the world to live it? What is on your bucket list? Whether it is possessing something of value or touring the world, you need to plan far in advance for it. What steps can you begin to take before you even retire to get the luxuries you want most? These are all valuable questions to examine and answer with your retirement planning specialist.