Think About The Future
With longer lifespans, most retirees enjoy a longer retirement than any of their ancestors did. But living to 100 doesnt mean youll feel the same at 98 as you did at 70. In time, everyone loses at least a bit of drive to go-go-go.
Re-evaluate your retirement periodically and make adjustments as you see fit. The more you plan ahead, the less likely youll find yourself in a situation where you need care but cant pay for it, want to be near family but cant move, or any other of the number of surprises that might creep up over the years.
Here are 7 Tips for Imagining Your Future.
Grow Your Friendship Group
Youve now got time to get to know the people around you a little better. Rather than just sticking to friends in your own age group, making friends with people of all ages exposes you to new experiences and different points of view, which will help you stay young at heart. Younger friends will also benefit from your life experience. You could even sign up for a pen pal scheme such as Postpals, which links you up with seriously ill children so you can send them letters, cards and gifts to make them smile during a difficult time.
Roll Your Savings From Your 401 Into An Ira
This is called consolidation, and it offers the advantage of simplificationall accounts in one place. While you cant contribute to a 401 after you retire, if you have some earned income, you can continue adding funds to an IRA, which may also have more investment options to choose from. Learn how to start a rollover IRA.
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Here Are Tips To Help You Pay Off Your Debt Before Retirement
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Start a side hustle:
If you feel that your current income is insufficient to help you pay the debt before retirement, you can start a side hustle.
If you choose a side hustle that you would love to engage in, like photography, handicraft design, and managing social media for small businesses, then you wouldnt even have to feel stressed.
In the words of Marc Anthony, If you do what you love, youll not have to work a day in your life. So, try to choose a side hustle that doesnt lead to additional stress in your life while helping you make some extra money to pay off your debts in time.
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Minimize credit card usage:
Interest rates on credit cards are really high. Howard Dvorkin, the CPA and chairman of debt.com, says, Right now, credit card interest rates are hovering around 20%.
This stat implies that you are paying a dollar for every five you borrowed. Such high rates of interest can not only eat away your current income, but can also leave you struggling during your retirement years when youll have to live on a fixed income.
So, you must minimize credit card usage now and all excess spending. But, of course, if you can stop using your credit card, thats even better.
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In the case of federal student loans, try seeking loan forbearance:
Many times people carry student loan debt into retirement. In 2017, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found that around 2.8 million adults over age 60 carried student loan debt at an average balance of $23,500.
Preparing Emotionally For Retirement
Retiring is a huge life event, and can sometimes leave us feeling like weve lost our identity. 70-year-old Jay Cassie talks to us about how she prepared emotionally for retirement and the 3-point plan which helped her.
After working as Exhibition Coordinator for Earls Court and Olympia for 22 years, Jay left to work for a security company in the exhibition event business.
After that, she set up her own security company with two partners, which she still owns but doesnt work in. She decided to retire when she was 63.
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Volunteer For As Long As Possible
There are diverse groups of organizations that need volunteers to help with their cause and program activities. You could select a cause that is important to you or go to one of many sites on the internet that will match your skills to organizations needing volunteers, like Volunteer Vacations for example.
Trips range from one to three weeks, and you choose where you want to go and how you want to volunteer. This is a rewarding experience that you can do anywhere in the world, so lets get out there and make a difference!
Build A Very Long Hill
When Buffett says hill, he means time, and when he says, build a very long hill, he means start investing young . The sooner you invest, Buffett says, the more time you give your investments to grow.
For some perspective, Buffett bought his first stock when he was only 11 years old. Yes, at the age when most of us are still in grade five, learning multiplication and division, Buffett bought three shares of an oil company, Cities Service, at around $38 a share. 19 years later, he became a millionaire at age 30, and 26 years after that, he became a billionaire at age 56.
I started building this little snowball at the top of a very long hill, Buffett said, referring to the early years of his investing. The trick to having a very long hill is either starting very young or living to be very old.
Notice that Buffett didnt say he built a big snowball. When youre young, the size of your snowball doesnt matter. Instead, what matters is that you start. What matters is that you put that little snowball on the top of a big hill and give it a push. What matters is that you take that extra $100 or $50 or $25 and invest it.
Then let compound interest work hard for you. If you dont touch your investments if you dont sell them when the market tanks your money will build momentum over time. Thats the power of building a long hill: time works harder for you.
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What To Do After Retirement Become A Teacher
Some brand new teachers enter the arena as a second career. Is this something youd like to consider? If you want to teach in a traditional setting, whether public or private schools or colleges, youll probably need additional education. Learn more about certification, salaries and more here. And, if you really want to make a difference, the U.S. Department of Education publishes a list of which areas of the country have teacher shortages.
But the traditional classroom is not the only way to earn a living as a teacher:
Or You Could Always Move
If your current house isnt worth all the trouble, then why not move to the place you want to be? Some people like living in the city with stores and entertainment a mere few blocks away. Others prefer the country with huge yards, clear skies, and a quiet neighborhood. Whatever your tastes are, you should make good on them. These are your golden years and you should spend it where you want. Then once you move, head one space up on this list and you suddenly have something else to do!
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Important Things To Do Before You Retire
Bid Adieu to debt
Imagine paying some debts even after retirement even small debts can become too great a strain in retirement. How would that be? Retirement is your time to enjoy at least in a small measure and you want no kind of debt.
You want to be able to travel and maybe, as an entrepreneur start a different company if you want.
However, once you retire, youll only have a fixed income to cover your monthly expenses. Under such circumstances, having to pay off additional debt from your fixed income can leave you living in stress and scarcity (youve had enough of that through your career.
People who retire without mortgages usually have less financial worry and insecurity after retirement.
So, before you retire, it is crucial to bid adieu to debt. For this, you can create a plan to clear your debts before you retire. But, take care not to compromise your retirement savings to pay off debt because that, too, can stress yourself too much in the process.
You’ll Spend More Money Than You Think
A typical rule of thumb is that you’ll spend about 80 percent as much in retirement as you do when you work. After all, you won’t be shoveling money into your retirement account, commuting every day and, for that matter, paying Social Security payroll tax, assuming you have no more earned income. But at least in the early years of retirement, when you’re younger, healthier and newly freed from the constraints of work, you could very well spend as much as or more than you did before retirement. A J.P. Morgan Asset Management study found that there tends to be a spending surge by new retirees on travel, home renovations or relocation, and other retirement-related lifestyle changes that levels off after two or three years.
“Every day is Saturday, says Sean Pearson, a certified financial planner in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. Once you don’t work, you wake up and look for things to do basically, how we all feel on Saturday. Some things might be fun and social. Some things might be work around the house. Most things cost some money, which is why Saturday is often the most expensive day of your week.”
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Get Involved In Your Community
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Early retirement is a perfect time to get involved with charity and community organizations. Many of the most rewarding hobbies for retirees involve giving back. Spend time prepping meals at a soup kitchen, walk dogs at a humane society, or drive cancer patients to treatment. If youre not sure where your skills can be best utilized, Senior Corps can connect adults 55 and over with volunteer opportunities in their community, as well as abroad!
Remember Your Family In Retirement
Spend more time with family, grandchildren or great-grandchildren. For the older grandchildren, you could attend school and sporting activities, take them to special events, zoos, museums, and sports games.
You can offer to babysit the younger grandchildren. Help with their education by reading to them, drilling them on upcoming quizzes, help with special projects and tutor where needed.
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Additional Thoughts On Retirement Helps
Sort out your end of life plans:
Live before you die, so that death is also a lively celebration. B.K.S. Iyengar.
Iyengars words highlight what we all should ideally do. But, most of us do not live fully. So, ask yourself, do I live fully?
You may be an exception, but the truth is that most of us dont take the time to craft a life we just muddle through. We spend most of our time working and have very little time doing things that make us feel alive.
If you really want to live before you die, dont forget to sort out your end-of-life plans before you retire.
Once you retire, you can do many things you wanted to do when you were young, but never got the chance to because of work or other engagements.
You wont want to spend even a minute of your days after retirement on making plans and figuring out ways to make them work.
Start now and create your bucket list On your list, put in items, destinations, and wishes youve held close to your heart all these years.
Begin to generate a rough idea of how youll do these things. For example, if you want to travel to a foreign country, create a plan regarding the places you would love to visit, people you would love to take along, how long you would like to stay there, and so on.
What Are Social Security Retirement Benefits
American workers pay Social Security taxes on their income. If they have paid enough into the system by retirement by earning 40 work credits, they are eligible to receive benefits.
How much in benefits you’ll receive depends on whether you take Social Security early or opt to wait until full retirement age. For people born in 1943 through 1954, the full retirement age is 66. However, the full retirement age increases each year gradually until it reaches age 67 for those born in 1960 or later.
People can choose to receive Social Security benefits even though they haven’t reached full retirement age as long as their earnings are under the income limit, which for 2021 is $18,960, and for 2022, it is $19,560. For earnings above the income limits of 2021 or 2022, $1 in Social Security will be withheld for every $2 earned.
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Things To Do In Retirement 25 Ideas To Inspire You
The thought of not having to go to work anymore might be tempting but as anyone whos come through lockdown will know, freedom can be a double-edged sword. Boredom can often follow close behind, so you should aim to see retirement not as the end of something, but as the start of something new. The question is, what? Thats what this article is here to help you find out.
Tip number one is to take a proactive approach to retirement. Act the age you feel, not the age the world might expect you to be. Make new experiences part of your retirement planning, and youll stay younger for longer.
The Age UK Index of Wellbeing in Later Life concluded that engaging with the world around us through social, creative, physical or community activities can contribute more than 20% to our wellbeing in later life. Whats more, choosing the right goals and activities helps people of all ages to make more friends, provide structure and routine, and bring a sense of achievement. Here are 25 ideas to get you started as you begin the next fulfilling chapter of your life.
The Boring Glory Of Index Funds
Your best bet is to buy something called an index fund and keep it forever. Index funds buy every stock or bond in a particular category or market. The advantage is that you know youll be capturing all of the returns available in, say, big American stocks or bonds in emerging markets.
And yes, buying index funds is boring: You usually wont see enormous day-to-day swings in prices the same way you may if you owned Apple stock. But those big swings come with powerful feelings of greed, fear and regret, and those feelings may cause you to buy or sell your investments at the worst possible time. So best to avoid the emotional tumult by touching your investments
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Reconnect With Your Heritage
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Get in touch with your roots during retirement! Check out Ancestry to trace your family tree, or join 23andMe to learn about your familys genetic makeup. Better yet, plan a trip to Salt Lake City to visit the world-renowned Family History Library, where you can conduct your own genealogical research!
Consider A Run For Local Office
Serving as a local official is another way to help your community. By helping to craft policy solutions, you can make a difference in health services, education and criminal justice within your city or state.
Get started: The first step is to think about the office you want to fun for, such as city representative, treasurer or school board member. Then check out your state election office or local election offices for campaign rules and regulations. If you belong to a political party, consider contacting the states office for campaign guidance and financial support. There are also political organizations like the League of Women Voters, for example, that provide resources to women involved in the election process.
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Remember That You Are Actually Only As Old As You Feel
Your age is only a number. It should not define what you do in retirement. Dont believe me? Look at these amazing accomplishments by 70, 80 and 90 year olds and more amazing accomplishments that prove that growing old is truly optional!
Furthermore, consider that Pablo Picasso was still producing art in his 90s. Thomas Edison invented the telephone at age 84. Laura Ingalls Wilder published her first book when she was 64.
Understanding Your Investment Account Options
Now that youve made the right choice in deciding to save for retirement, make sure you are investing that money wisely.
The lineup of retirement accounts is a giant bowl of alphabet soup: 401s, 403s, 457s, I.R.A.s, Roth I.R.A.s, Solo 401s and all the rest. They came into existence over the decades for specific reasons, designed to help people who couldnt get all the benefits of the other accounts. But the result is a system that leaves many confused.
The first thing you need to know is that your account options will depend in large part on where and how you work.
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Become An Expert At Anything
Youve probably had a lot of life experiences and dreamed about others that never happened. Did you ever think about becoming a brilliant chef but didnt have the time to go after it? Or did you once think about developing your mechanic skills but couldnt follow through?
Retirement is the perfect time to turn an interest into something that you master. You could create the next great thing in pottery, or fine-tune your woodworking skills. Whatever you pursue, plan to become an expert. And then pass that knowledge on.
