A hard-hitting tale, which comically shows retirement is not about worries and fretting over tiny issues, its about experiences and little joys of life provided money is not a constraint.

There are many real-life situations depicted in this movie. But the conclusion differs because in the end the father abandons a son and leads a peaceful retired life. In the movie, it was possible to do so because the father was financially secure.

In real life scenarios, retired parents are often deserted without a single penny. And that's when the aged parents realize, if only they could have saved in abundance for their retirement. They would not have to be dependent and would have had a carefree retirement.

[Read: Does Your Economic Status Stop You From Retiring Rich? Here's What To Do...]

One day or the other, eventually you will retire and how you want to lead your retired life is the biggest question to think about during the time of retirement.

If you will ask me, in my view, retirement is the time to forgo all the worries of life, live without a boss or commuting, a life of fulfilment spent with beloved family, to pursue passions, learn a new hobby, and to perhaps just sit back relaxed in the rocking chair.

But here's a catch, only if you have planned for your retirement well in advance can you forget all your worries of life during your golden years.

However, our investment consultants have come across many naive individuals for whom blissful retirement is still a distant dream. For many people in India, retirement means relying on their children or relying on meagre pension (if an ex-employee of the government sector). Usually, they have no clue about where to begin planning their finances and/or tend to ignore the entire exercise completely.

[Read: Are These 6 Behavioural Biases Preventing You From Investing?]

Remember for a blissful retirement as the coveted haven, planning is the gateway for it. Effective prudent planning will help you:

✔ Fund your daily expenditures of post retired life

✔ Tackle inflation adeptly

✔ To deal with medical emergencies

✔ Deal with life's contingencies

✔ Achieve financial freedom and be independent

Retirement planning is one of the most important financial goals of our life.

The earlier you start making prudent decisions, the more effective it will be in helping you realize your future financial goals, based on your current personal financial situation.So, you need to start investing now!

But, investing badly or investing by following another person's strategy (friend, finance 'guru', etc) or blindly heeding to random free advice could lead to sleepless nights, loss of wealth and health as well. It can be a daunting time.

[Read: Avoid These Mistakes While Planning For Your Blissful Retirement]

Hence, consider a raft of things to do for your retirement investment plan because your needs are different from someone else's. Be mindful of these things:

• Set financial goals (short-term and long-term including retirement)

• Consider your life expectancy

• Determine the amount of money you will require to fulfil each goal

• Ascertain the time horizon you have before the goals befall

• Choose the perfect combination of investment avenues based on your risk profile, income, and the number of years you will work before you retire.

• Start investing immediately and diligently

• Periodically review your portfolio

Most financial advisers recommend having a mix of risky assets, such as direct equity or equity mutual fund, low-risk investments, such as Fixed deposits, Pension funds, and debt mutual funds, and gold to create a customised portfolio. The portfolio should be well diversified and based on individual asset allocation - that will rise in value over time and will still help protect the retiree from market downturns.

Graph 1: Risk-Return trade-off of various asset classes

(For illustrative purpose)

The wise thing to do would be to choose a well-diversified mutual fund scheme because it reduces the risk of loss, provides better inflation-adjusted returns depending on the type of fund as per one's risk and professionally managed.

While it's true that investing in mutual funds for the long-term is crucial to generate a sizable retirement corpus, it's equally important to choose mutual fund schemes carefully.

Watch this video to learn how to select mutual funds...

 

If you invest in diversified equity mutual funds through Systematic Investment Plans (SIPs), you would be able to build a sufficient corpus for your retirement.

A monthly SIP of Rs 15,000 in a worthy diversified equity fund can help you accumulate Rs 1.5 crore over 20 years and Rs 2.8 crore over 25 years, assuming you clock a 12% rate of return. If your investments fetch you 15% returns, the SIP will accumulate Rs 2.2 crore over 20 years and Rs 4.9 crore over 25 years.

Because of the power of compounding, equity mutual funds make the perfect investment avenue for retirement planning.

Moreover, investing in direct plans offered by mutual funds can fetch you even higher returns.

But it's easier said than done. A couple of reasons are:

1. Saving for the future and curbing the temptation to spend money is difficult, which makes it nearly impossible for many of us to invest regularly.

2. If you overcome this hurdle, investing intelligently is another task where people often fail.

Hence, to make sure that you have enough money for your retirement, the golden years of life, start early and plan your retirement today!  Do not delay any further. Remember, the early bird gets a bigger worm.

In conclusion:

Blissful Retirement is more than just numbers and there's more to it, it's the best phase of life---a time to reconnect with yourself your loved ones and to live peacefully. You don't want to jeopardize this by worrying about money. Nevertheless, having money will help you sleep easy at night and will ensure that you can find the meaning to your life and live it enriched and fulfilled. So, decide how you want your retirement to be and then focus your intentions on making that vision a reality.

Finally, I would like to end by quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson's saying - "The desire of gold is not for gold. It is for the means of freedom and benefit."

Editor's note:  If you want your retirement to be blissful, don't miss out on PersonalFN's Retire Rich service. This is a new and exclusive service with the sole intent of securing your retirement.

It is a DIY (Do It Yourself) retirement solution, whereby you can start planning for your retirement and potentially build a substantial corpus that could sustain you in the golden years of your life.

It is not merely a list of funds or a particular investment idea. It is a comprehensive solution to guide you with almost ALL the necessary essentials of retirement planning.

Subscribe now!

Add Comments