Reaching the end of the employment road and shifting into the fastlane of retirement is something we all look forward to. After all, who wouldn’t want to swap the nine to five for … well, doing whatever you want whenever you want to do it. However, without the right planning in place, you could find that your retirement fund is not so much a stream of monthly income but rather a broken garden tap with a slow drip.
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Make an income-outgoing budget
This is one thing that nobody likes to do, but biting the bullet and making a budget is the first step in taking control of your money in retirement. The process is simple enough. You’re going to need one pencil, one piece of paper, and either your online banking details to hand or your most recent printed bank statement laid out in front of you. Now, draw two columns on your sheet of paper, one for the income total, and one for the outgoings total.
All you have to do is add it all up the outgoings and subtract it from your income. See? Wasn’t that easy? It was also probably a wake up call, because for most of us, the income column will have one singular figure, whereas the outgoings column will contain many numbers that may add up to more than half of your income. That’s why the following two tips are aimed at balancing the books…
Increase your income (with part-time work)
Many people heading into their retirement choose to supplement their income with part-time self-employed opportunities. How exactly you could go about this can either come down to your skills and experience (such as sewing, baking, gardening, etc.) or perhaps you may wish to take on a new skill such as blogging or making and selling craft items. Whatever it is you choose to do, you can set your own hours and you can charge your own rates, and remember, whereas before this wouldn’t have been possible due to the time constrictions of your job, you now have all day every day to put together your life as the all new self-employed CEO of your new business.
Cut your out-goings
Cutting your outgoings is easy to say and hard to do, with most people taking weeks and months to follow through on cuts once they’ve realised where those cuts could conceivably come from. Things such as streaming services or zoo memberships (or clubs or gyms of any kind for that matter), they can most likely all go without affecting you too much. Be brave. Cancel everything you don’t really need.
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