Retirement

Questions to Ask Yourself About Your Impending Retirement

  • Mark Edwards ·
  • 0 Comments ·
  • March 19, 2017

If you find your thoughts turning to your retirement, you may just be becoming more and more concerned about how you will cope not only financially but also in general, as you give up the working way of life for a perhaps more sedentary lifestyle. By retirement age, we have all thoroughly deserved this unique and special time after working for so much of our lives. However, it is understandable that this transition will also be a time of worry for precisely what lies beyond that retirement party.

How Much Thought Have You Put into Preplanning Your Retirement Years?

Have you devised a budget to envisage what you will need to put by to live comfortably for the next few decades or so? Will your pension cover merely the necessary basic standards of living, or have you accounted for an extra amount each month that will enable you to live the life you are currently accustomed to living as you work? This question can be derived based on how you intend to live out your retirement years and whether you desire to spend it as active as possible or perhaps lead a more sedentary lifestyle now that you have given up the rat race!

How Do You Envisage Your Retirement Years?

Usually, when a decade away from approaching retirement, most people will have a clearer picture of how they would now prefer to spend their retirement years. A large majority of people will also realize by this point in time that what they are looking forward to the most is merely gaining back the time they never had a chance to take advantage of when they were working! This can usually be a good initial indicator of how you will need to prepare yourself financially for this period. By discerning how you intend to live out your retirement years beforehand, you can work from this as your starting point and prepare for this well-deserved time of life.

Pad Your Income During Retirement

Obtaining a home loan to pad your income during retirement may sound like a good idea, but a regular mortgage will require you to repay your debt on a regular monthly basis. A reverse mortgage, on the other hand, will provide you with money every month. Repayment will not be immediately required in any sense, and you will also have the security of retaining ownership of your home. However, because you will be receiving part of the equity of the home from your reverse mortgage lender as spendable funds you will be required to repay that equity in full if you ever give up ownership of the property voluntarily or via your death. In either case if you or your family does not pay the remaining balance the sale of the home will allow the lender to recover the loan money.