Understanding retirement savings
Planning for retirement is essential. Even those who contribute to a company pension or provident fund will almost certainly find that it is not enough to guarantee them dignity in retirement.
Take charge. Don’t assume you are automatically saving enough, or have invested appropriately.
Get a handle on the fees you are paying. If you are paying too much, challenge your employer’s fund representatives, or select a cheaper option.
There are some basic rules for successful retirement saving. These include:
-Start early: The sooner you start to save the more you will have saved. This, added to the power of compound interest, will enable you to retire well.
-Stay informed: If you are not already offered a pension fund option through your employer, there are many other investment options. These include, among others, tax-free fixed deposit accounts and retirement annuities.
-Get the right help: If you are not a retirement fund professional it may be challenging to understand what is best when planning your future. For this reason, chatting to an expert may be beneficial when it comes to understanding which savings option is best for you.
-Match your employers contribution: If your employer has a pension fund option in place for you, consider contributing extra money into your fund, or matching your company’s contribution. In this way you are actively saving more.
-Set up debit orders for your contributions: Consider implementing automated monthly payments for your retirement savings contributions, in this way you will not forget to make payment and you assured that a set amount is being saved into your fund each month.
Before you get started
It’s important to understand what you are signing up for and what you are saving towards.
Once you start figuring out how much you need to live well in retirement, you’ll understand what you are saving towards. Experts estimate that you will need to save anywhere from 10 – 20% of your salary and adjust that amount for inflation every year.
Other factors that will affect how much you will need to save and through which savings option is the life stage you are at, whether you have dependents such as children or your parents, and your future financial goals.
Try to also put expenses into perspective. While there may be certain expenses draining your cashflow currently they may decrease in the near future, and for that reason, it is wise not to compromise your retirement plan.
Remember, even though you can not save as much as you need to right now, save what you can.
To get an estimate of what you’ll need to save, click here.
