Planning For Your Retirement
Retirement planning is pretty much the same as Financial Planning, only this time the focus and goal is to ensure a comfortable retirement. What “comfortable” means to you will be very different to others, which is why any article or claim that you need to have $X by the time you retire is at best suspect, and at worst scaremongering.
Why is Retirement Planning Important?
Retirement now looks very different to what our grandparents or parents experienced. You may never experience a sudden shift from full time work to full retirement as was once the norm. You may even want to keep working. The transition into full retirement is often more gradual now and ‘semi-retirement’ is a new life phase.
You can expect to lead a fairly active lifestyle in your golden years too, and will probably do so far longer than previous generations. This means that you’ll be able to do things you enjoy such as travelling, spending more time on your hobbies and interests, learning new skills, and visiting friends and family – if you can afford to do so.
The earlier you begin to plan for your retirement, the better prepared you will be to make the transition. New Zealand’s Superannuation payment for people aged 65 years + does help cover some expenses, but will most likely fall short on how much you’ll need to live the kind of lifestyle that you want.
A retirement plan will identify your potential shortfall and puts in place the actions you need to take to ensure your retirement years are financially stress free.
The Process
We follow the same process as Financial Planning but the focus at Step One is to determine exactly what kind of retirement you envisage for yourself. If your goals are wider than just planning for your retirement, we recommend you incorporate your retirement wishes into a full financial plan.
But Isn’t Kiwisaver All I Need?
Kiwisaver is a voluntary savings scheme that helps you put money aside for retirement. You choose a percentage of your salary to be deducted and saved with a Kiwisaver scheme provider. It is designed to help you save for your retirement (or to buy a first house). But if you haven’t contributed enough for any number of reasons (e.g. you started late, contributed only the minimum, withdrew your savings to buy your first home or took time out from working to raise a family), you could find your Kiwisaver balance falls short of what you need.
This is why you can’t rely on Kiwisaver alone and expect it to be enough.
We may be fans of the Kiwisaver scheme, but it should be considered as one of many tools in your retirement planning kit bag. It’s also important that you invest in the right Kiwisaver scheme provider for you. Balancing the returns you need against the investment risk can be tricky and expert advice can help you get it right.
HAVE CONFIDENCE IN YOUR FUTURE. CALL US NOW TO GET STARTED