Retirement. Just the word can frighten those of us who know we haven’t done nearly enough. Will you have enough save for retirement? How much will you actually need? What are you going to do every day? While these questions can consume many of our thoughts as we think about our own retirements we need to remember as long as we have prepared and prepared some more we can do this retirement thing!
What if you are going to retire within the next five or so years? There are some things you can do now to get ready for that day and to make sure you are sitting pretty when you actually take the plunge into retirement. The following tips will help you feel more secure about your retirement and hopefully help you to create the retirement you always dreamed of.
Retire In The Right Place
You may be looking to stay right where you are at or possibly you are looking to move closer to family or perhaps living near family is no requirement at all. Maybe you are looking to move to somewhere warmer near the beach or somewhere closer to the mountains. Either way a few things to remember when retiring are, state income taxes, the cost of living, culture, climate. What of these are important to you? You can save quite a bit of money if you retire somewhere that have great tax benefits for retirees. It shouldn’t be your only stipulation though. Remember you want to have fun while you retire so what are your hobbies or what new hobby would you like to take up? Will your new location allow you to enjoy those hobbies? All of this should be looked at before you actually retire. Within the last five years of retirement is a great time to start figuring this out. Check out, The 25 Best Places To Retire in 2014
Plan Your Big Ticket Purchases
Will you be needing a new car or will you be remodeling your home soon? These are the types of questions you should ask yourself now while you can save up for these purchases. It may even be wise to purchase some of these items sooner while you have a higher income and can afford this rather than having to take out more from your retirement account when retired.
Trial Run Your Retirement
One thing you can do to before you actually retire is estimate your retirement monthly income and try to live on it for the month to see how you do. With this trial you will be able to see if your income is enough for your expenses. One thing this will send light on is what you are actually spending money on. If you don’t know what you are spending your money on currently you must get that figured out. There are plenty of apps and websites to help you figure out what you are spending your money on. Once you have figured out if your income is enough for your expenses you can also look deeper into your spending. Will these expenses be the same when you actually retire? What will be the same and what will be different? You can really use this trial run to get as much information as you want from this. The deeper you go the more you will know about your future retirement.
Hopefully these tips help you to create the best retirement you could dream of. There are so many things you can do to help ensure a great retirement. The closer you get to retirement the harder it is to affect your retirement because you don’t have all that time to make a lot of interest on your money. You don’t have time to put a lot of money into your retirement accounts. The earlier you prepare for your retirement the bigger affect you can have on your retirement. Start saving and planning for your retirement as early as you can. It makes a huge difference. The above tips can be those extra forgotten tips that can still help you when you retirement is within five years.
Written by:
Nick Barker