How To Retire In the 21st Century
Everyone dreams about retiring or at least not having to go to work. Unfortunately, most of us don’t do a good job of planning that far ahead. And some of us don’t think about fluctuations in the economy or government decisions that can have a significant impact on our retirement plans.
Several companies I invested in went belly up in 2008 and I watched as the company I was working with down-size again and again as contracts were cancelled or projects postponed in 2009. It was reported that most 401k plans lost 3% after the U.K. voted to leave the European Union. That’s some future money that will be hard to replace.
How Much Money To Retire?
All that aside, most of us think we don’t make enough money to effectively save for the future, but we don’t fully realize that until after the fact. But I believe that the two most important things to have in retirement is good health and enough money.
How we get and keep those two things is the real challenge after we retire. For most of us, that means we’ll keep working long after the retirement party is over.
What we need are the best retirement tips from a first person perspective that we can get for the twenty-first century and probably retirement information that you won’t get from a financial adviser.
There’s a lot of retirement information available from federal and state government agencies, banks and investment firms about investing for a future that is twenty or thirty years down the road. But if you don’t have twenty or thirty years, the type of information you may need is very different.
Today’s retirees need to know how to address the “new retirement” topics such as how to preserve your retirement savings, how to generate additional retirement income, how to find fun retirement jobs and how to get involved in fun retirement activities.
In today’s economy, most people won’t be ready for retirement or may not have enough money for retirement. Costs go up every year and everything, especially health care, is getting more expensive. And, if you don’t have enough savings it becomes difficult to continue investing in your future.
Then the problem becomes finding information that fits your situation or circumstances and may including wading through the bureaucracy that comes with it.
Social Security may be available for retirement, but it won’t be enough and other sources of retirement income may be needed. Most of us will continue to work at something to earn extra money and stay busy. Some of us will continue to work because we like what we do.
There are a lot of rules you have to comply with when you reach the allotted retirement age and the rules change from time to time. Everybody has to sign up for medicare and figuring out when and how to apply for social security can be stressful in itself, especially if you don’t use computers.
Everyone will retire someday and there’s dozens of things to consider before it happens. Retirement takes planning to get it right. If you want to have a good retirement, take the time to explore the possibilities and be creative in planning for an eventual retirement. Get as much information as you need to make good informed decisions before you retire not after.
The purpose of this website is to help retired folks and those who are soon-to-be-retired get information that will help them identify their options in achieving a successful retirement. Check out the archives below for more useful information.