Retirement Planning Concepts

Many powerful societal forces are making retirement planning more important than ever. Longer life expectancies, fewer defined benefit pension plans, corporate "rightsizing," the trend toward multiple job - even career - changes, and rising health care costs all make planning for retirement more critical now than ever before. So regardless of your age, where you work or your life situation, you should start planning now for your retirement. Even if you have a company retirement plan and expect to receive Social Security, those funds may not be enough to maintain your lifestyle when you retire. However, if you start planning now, you can take steps toward the retirement income you want.

Retirement planning involves identifying your wants and needs, developing a plan to achieve them, acting on your plan and continually reviewing and revising your plan as you approach retirement. Like most areas of financial planning, retirement planning begins with defining your goals.

Ask yourself these questions:

1. At what age do I plan to retire?

2. Will I start a new part-time career during retirement, or never work again?

3. How long do I think I'll need my money to last?

4. How much money will it take to support my household?

5. How do I envision my lifestyle during retirement? Days on the golf course? World travel? Pursuing a hobby?

6. Where will I live when I retire?

Once you know where you're going, it's time to figure out how to get there. Through retirement planning, you'll answer questions like these:

1. What provisions do I need to make to take care of my health care needs during retirement years?

2. How much money do I need to save to meet my goals?

3. How should I invest my money to maximize my retirement savings?

4. How will my assets, liabilities, expenses and savings change during retirement?

Remember, the sooner you start to save and plan for your retirement years, the more prepared you will be. Thanks to the power of compounding, early planning means that just a small investment each year could create a portfolio large enough to meet your needs later in life.

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