Allocate funds keeping higher life expectancy in mind, do not forget to prepare a will
The prospect of retirement often brings some people face to face with the hard reality that in some months they will not be working anymore. For many, retirement also means that from then on they have to be careful about having enough funds that will outlast them. With the rate of inflation going up at high single digits or, at times, in low double digits, this could be a daunting task for many as they fail to take judicious steps just at the time of retirement or may be a few months before that happens.
Here we will discuss some of the issues that just-retired people or who are on the verge of retirement face and how they should address them.
People who are about to retire or have just retired have several things on their mind which for some reason they could not take up during their working years. During their entire earning phase, they may not have availed the services of a financial planner but have some savings which they think are enough to outlast them in their sunset years. However, there’s a checklist why those savings may not be enough.
One wants to keep up with inflation but the cost of living — like energy, housing, food, etc — has dramatically increased, often outpacing retirement income and savings. The result is a lot of people heading into retirement need to supplement their income to cover expenses.
How to maintain the pre-retirement lifestyle, and not willing to forego things that one was used to. It is assumed that financial needs decrease after retirement. However, this may be an overstatement and by most estimates one would need at least 70-80% of the final working years’ income each year to maintain the same lifestyle after retiring.
In addition, the pension income may become inadequate, which offers a return of just about 6-7% and does not beat inflation. There could be pending obligations such as a daughter’s wedding or some debt to pay off or simply one did not start saving early enough.
Gandhi pointed out that since people are living longer and much healthier than before, after retirement one may seek new challenges and invest into a new business to stay active physically and mentally. But starting a business requires capital and that can have some impact on your post-retirement corpus.
According to Mukund Seshadri of MSVentures Financial Planners, there is also a checklist of dos and don’ts that just-retired people should follow. Firstly, the person should complete the full and final settlement with the organization where he/she was working. This may bring out some hidden funds and that will give the complete picture of the financial situation of the individual. The individual should fill up all the relevant forms immediately and get these funds transferred to his/her account as soon as possible.
Then comes the time to sit with the spouse and decide on the future plans which, in turn, would give some idea about future expenses of the two. The next step is to check all the current investments, make proper nominations to all the investments, update your KYC (know your client) formalities, check if all the names and addresses are correct or not, and keep all documents in order and up to date.
And finally, which is very important, Seshadri advises every retired person to make a will. It is not necessary to register a will but it should have at least two witnesses — preferably the family doctor and a financial planner/ advisor — and the witnesses should not be the beneficiaries in the will, financial planners said.
Making a will may be a very sentimental thing, but it also has huge legal and practical implications.
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