7 Tips to Start Your Retirement Planning

Planning for retirement is an exciting time, but you must make sure you’re ready and you have all your affairs in order before walking into the golden sunshine. Your retirement period is where you get to reap the rewards of all your hard work over the past decades, swapping work for hobbies, family time, and things you enjoy.

To make the most of your retirement, you should start planning everything you need to make this a financially lucrative time. One of the best ways to do this is by working with an adviser to plan your retirement. But what else can you do? Keep reading to find out.

1.Choose Your Minimum Desired Income

One of the first things you need to do is decide how much you need from your superannuation savings to live comfortably every month. Along with daily living expenses, you’ll also need to put money aside for things like home improvements, children or grandchildren, and holidays.

Your monetary requirements will often change throughout the years, so be mindful to monitor this every now and then to see how your priorities have changed. The last thing you want is to reach retirement age and realise you haven’t budgeted correctly for a comfortable lifestyle.

2.Keep an Eye on Your Superannuation Savings

After you’ve worked out a rough estimate of what you’ll need to live on each month, you can then determine how much you already have saved for your retirement and what you’ll get from the government. This includes keeping tabs on all superannuation plans you’ve had from previous jobs. If you have multiple superannuation pots, it might be worth combining them to make this entire process easier. A financial advisor will be able to help you decide whether this is worth it or not.

When determining how much you have in your superannuation savings, make sure you account for extra sources of income such as ISAs and rental properties.

3.Know What Your Retirement Journey Will Consist Of

Some people decide to retire at a certain age and never go back to work while others will start reducing their hours until they stop working to continue benefiting from the extra income. Whether you want to keep working or not will depend on your financial situation and whether or not you’re ready to completely retire.

There are many different ways you can approach retirement, so weighing up the pros and cons of each is an essential part of planning your retirement.

4.Prepare For Risks

There are often risks associated with many financial decisions you make, including those involving your retirement plan. So it’s wise to consider how wide the swings you can adapt to in regards to the value of your investments. For example, if your investments come with too high of a risk capacity, you might decide that the financial loss is too risky to continue with.

How adaptable you are to risks will influence how you’ll take money from your superannuation amount, such as by taking out lump sums while keeping the rest of the amount invested until you need it again.

5.Ultilse Tax Relief

Many financial advisors will recommend taking advantage of tax relief when saving for your superannuation or planning your retirement. While you’re working, you’re able to pay money into your superannuation pot and the government will top this up with a certain amount depending on how much you put in. You might also be able to claim back on the tax you pay for this, although this depends on your individual circumstances.

6.Use Your Superannuation Allowances

You might only be able to pay a certain amount into your superannuation pot each financial year. The government caps this at $110,000 of non-concessional contributions, which is money from your after-tax pay. However, if you want to pay more than this into your superannuation account per year, you might be able to use unused allowances from previous years to work around this. You might be able to top up your superannuation savings without being restricted by the cap.

7.Avoid Common Superannuation Issues

When planning for your retirement, some people face common challenges such as old and outdated schemes, employers not paying enough into their superannuation funds, and more. To avoid these becoming an issue and influencing your retirement plans adversely, we recommend getting a financial advisor to check your plan out to prevent the issues from popping up too late.

Final Thoughts

Planning your retirement should be an exciting time, but thinking about your finances can be difficult and take all the fun out of it. To help prevent stress and make sure your plan goes ahead completely, use a financial advisor to help you with your goals, savings, and more.