Many people dream of the day they can quit working and retire, but many end up going back to working part time to make ends meet. There are some things to keep in mind when you retire.
Some of your expenses may be less in retirement, but others may be larger. In most cases, you may have your home paid off so you won’t have a mortgage payment. However, your health expenses may get higher as you get older.
Dreams of retirement for many include travel and other leisure activities, but with these comes extra expenses. Some of these activities may get more difficult to enjoy the older you get. If you are a fixed income, it is more important than ever to live within your means and not get into credit card trouble. Once you start charging more than you can afford to repay within a month or two, you can quickly get into deep financial trouble.
Even though you don’t have an actual income from salary it is still important to track what money you have coming in and going out each month. You may need to change your expense categories than when you were younger. You may not have mortgage payments and other expenses but you may have higher expenses on other things such as medical expenses and others.
People are living longer than they used to so their savings need to last longer. It may seem like you have a lot of money in your retirement savings, but you also need to consider how many years that has to last.
Your kids or other family members may be in financial difficulties and come to you looking for assistance. Before lending money to others, make sure you can afford to lend it. One rule about lending money is consider if you can afford not to get repaid if they would not be able to repay the loan. Loaning money to family members can cause strains in your family. It is more important to consider it a gift so you do not harbor bad feelings.
You may want to retire as soon as your reach the age you are eligible for retirement payments. Even if you wait one or two years longer, you will end up getting a considerable amount more of payments over the years.
Even if you didn’t get a chance to put money away for retirement when you were younger, it is still important to save what you can now. It is more important to save what you can than not save anything at all. Many people in their 40s, 50s and above may think it is too late to start saving, but anything you can save can make a difference.
If you are covered by Medicare, you may need additional health insurance to cover some areas that Medicare doesn’t cover. There are some things that are not covered by Medicare that can wreck havoc with your savings if you become responsible for them. Just as it is important to have other types of insurance, it is important to be fully insured in retirement.
There are many things retirees need to consider about personal finances.