Finance

This Is How to Start Planning for Retirement

If you're trying to figure out how to start planning for retirement, you came to the right place. This guide will teach you what to do to retire comfortably.

If it hasn’t happened to you yet, it will.

One day, you’ll be minding your own business and living your life. And the next, you’ll come down with a sudden case of “How am I going to get ready for retirement?”. According to The Motley Fool, only 28 percent of Americans feel their retirement plans are headed in the right direction. So if you don’t feel like you’ve got a solid plan in place, you’re not alone.

To that end, if you’re not sure how to start planning for retirement and you’re exploring your options, then you’ve come to the right place. We’ll tell you exactly how you can get ready to retire in just three steps. All you have to do is keep reading.

Table of Contents

1. Figure Out What an Ideal Retirement Looks Like for You

People don’t always realize this until they start saying things like, “I’m not sure how to plan for retirement.”, but there are multiple ways to retire. You can live it up with cruises every other month when you’re not taking road trips. You can make occasional trips outside of the country. Or you can choose to enjoy living a quiet life right up until you’re ready to sell the house and live in a retirement home.

No matter how you want your retirement to look, however, the last thing you want is to be running low on money with no full-time job prospects in sight. When you have a solid sense of what you want your post-work life to look like, retirement planning becomes a lot easier.

2. Review Your Financial Options

Now that you’ve put together a ballpark savings figure, your next step is to deal with the logistics of going from “I need to put aside money for retirement.” to “These are the exact accounts that I’ll be putting cash into each month.”.

Should an annuity plan be on the table if you’re expecting to hit your contribution limits this year? Do you have a 401(k) through work?

You may have to go over the finer details of your savings and investments with a fee only financial planner. But once you’ve established a roadmap for yourself, your pathway to a comfortable retirement becomes a lot more clear.

3. Start Budgeting and Saving

When it comes to the whole process of figuring out how to retire, there are two ways to build up a six-figure savings account:

One is that you can win the lottery.

And the other is that you can put aside a small amount of money each month until you’re benefiting from the wonders of compound interest. Building up the kind of retirement savings that many people dream of starts with being consistent. The sooner you’re able to pin down your budget and save, the bigger your retirement fund will be.