Whether you’re close to retirement age or not, the idea of life without work is an incredibly appealing prospect. However, if you want to get the most out of your retirement, it’s vital that you begin to think about what you want to take from it and how you can prepare for it.
Financially, there are a huge number of considerations to make, including savings, investments, pensions, funeral plans and wills, but you also need to think about how you can maximise your time and what kind of a life you want to live once you quit your job for good. Here we take a look at a few different ways you can get the most from your retirement.
What do you want from retirement?
One of the key ways of ensuring you get what you want out of your retirement is by taking the time to consider how you want to spend the time and what you want to do with it. If you don’t know what you want from life after work, how are you going to ensure you achieve your goals? Everyone desires something different from retirement – be it a peaceful few years at home enjoying your hobbies, travelling the world or ticking off items on your bucket list – so it makes sense that people will need to prepare in different ways too.
Plan ahead
Once you understand exactly what you want from retirement, you can begin to work out how to achieve your aims. This will involve asking a number of important questions. How large will savings need to be? How many more years do you expect to work? How long is your retirement likely to be? Are there any other important financial considerations, such as rent, a mortgage, health bills or family commitments, to consider? Once you’ve answered such questions, you’ll be in a better position to budget for a financially secure future that’s able to deliver those things you really desire.
Reduce expenditure
One important but often forgotten means of ensuring a happy retirement is minimising the cost of those expenditures associated with old age. While a lot of people don’t consider a funeral plan until they are well into retirement, there’s enormous savings to be made if you begin thinking about these things now. With funeral costs rising at a far higher rate than inflation, a plan like the Beyond Open Plan could drastically reduce the amount you pay out for your funeral. By thinking ahead and taking out a plan like this now, you freeze the cost of your funeral at today’s prices and could avoid paying three times as much in 10 to 15 years’ time.
Prioritise
Finally, getting the most out of your retirement necessitates a certain amount of prioritisation. Realistically, you’re not going to be able to do absolutely everything you want with your retirement, so it’s important that you begin to think about what’s really vital to your plans and what you can afford to drop. Remember that life is full of surprises, so you don’t want to overstretch your savings and potentially leave yourself open to financial uncertainty. It’s always a good idea to maintain some savings as security should things not turn out quite as you had planned.
