When Enough is Enough Investment to Retire
When is enough always enough to retire? I have seen a lot of people who were making good salaries during their days in service, who were able to buy two to three cars own a residential home and were able to travel around, only to get retired and they had to first cut cost to a point where things now looks more difficult than when they were unemployed as a youth. Not because most of them don’t receive pension or gratuity but because the pension isn’t enough to foot bills anymore. While this people are finding it hard to live a good life as retiree, they were living good as active employees buying good things and furnishing their home to the taste of a millionaire which made a lot of people view them as having enough to survive any condition.
A lot of people while still being active in service make a lot of mistakes and this mistakes like buying the latest design of cloths so as to intimidate their fellow employees and colleague, they leave on corporative loans and credit, buying luxury with them and one thing they always forget is they will retire sooner than they expect.
You will retire sooner than you expect
Even if you own your business which has become a corporation, you will be forced to retire one day as your strength will start failing you, or you want to explore other areas of life. This things also affects employees but in the case of employees, most are not willing to retire, but there is a retiring age in several companies and most of the people are forced to retire. As a business owner and CEO, it is 90% possible that there are investment in stocks and shares to the name of the person in the company owned or in other companies and this make life very comfortable for them, allowing them to remain on Forbes list or other Billionaire an Millionaire list without going down but this isn’t the same with several employees. Employees usually get paid in cash and not stocks in most cases, and virtually all the time, there is a need to improve taste and this leads to living in debt. Most employees now revolve around debt that they forget to put into consideration that they will retire in no time. They do not see this as a problem until the company organizes a compulsory retirement party, at this point it is dawn on them that they do not own anything tangible or that could bring revenue.
When is Enough, Enough?
The first thing a lot of people should consider is a retirement plan. In civilized countries like the United States, a lot of people have a 401K which is meant to be a retirement saving grace and most time isn’t always enough to go through their retirement period but this isn’t the same in underdeveloped and developing nations. A lot of people do not have access to a 401K and their retirement becomes miserable. Enough becomes enough when you do not have to worry about income as a retiree.
How to live financially okay as a retiree
First, do not live above how you lived when in active service. It is not of any use to start living larger since you are retired, this will affect the outflow of money as money will be highly spent but when the standard of live is the same or lesser, expenses will not be a problem.
One thing to have a good retirement is having investment that can foot you r bills and still give you enough funds to re-invest or invest in other places. If you invest in 5 companies that pay dividend for 35 years and you reinvest your dividends for this period while also doing compound interest which is investing more money during this period, it is certain that you should have enough dividend to survive on when you retire, or you could even cash out your investment and go live a good live of your dream. For very skilled people, creating new businesses for the fun of it isn’t a bad idea, one major target for retirees should be investing till you have enough to carry my necessity when I retire
I really enjoyed reading this post, so educating. The need to show our friends how rich we are is one major problem to combat. Almost every individual have that feeling to express their selfless lifestyle.
We want to show the entire world that we are big boys and girls, this is where we get caught up with life.
I know it is not easy to keep up with the pace of life after retirement but consistency can make us achieve that.
Before you retire, try get one or two good project done. Imagining building houses with your work struggle, it should save you when you retire.
There are so many little things we can do when we are still young but we fail to do them because we want to satisfy certain youthful lust.
Amazing post.
You are right.
"First, do not live above how you lived when in active service" because even if there is retirement funds, living above how you lived in active sevice can quickly ruin it
That is correct too.
The truth is that we should all make a fund or a savings strategy for our old age, which very few do, people just enjoy the moment and forget about the future that will come. As you say, retirement in certain countries is not enough for anything, for example in Venezuela, grandparents are dying of hunger trying to collect the little they are offered.
It is very sad, some old people are dying of hunger because their children do not also have anything they could give to them from the penny they are earning.
The problem with people like this is they only live in the present believing that the future will take care of itself and that is one habit that makes people regret in their old age.
Right.....we have do many aged people like that over here.