How to Enjoy Your Retirement Fund
Collaborative Post
Planning for retirement is something that most of us have been taught from a young age as something that’s important. However, retirement doesn’t look the same for everyone and whilst the norm up until now has been to save that money and use the retirement fund to live off. Things have changed a lot, and now many people are doing things like building their own businesses, having private retirement funds that don’t come from jobs, and have other means of bringing in an income, so they don’t rely as much on the retirement fund as they perhaps would have needed to.
So in this post we are going to share with you some other ways that you can consider enjoying your retirement fund if you don’t have to worry about using it for a basic living costs or if you’d perhaps like to look at investing money after retirement and not giving up on your creative talents completely.
Travel
The ability to travel is something that most people really aspire to in their lives, and although it can be difficult when you have a family and young children, many people do wait until they reach retirement age to start travelling the way that they would always have like to. Now the fact that you don’t have to work, and that you have a retirement plan that provides an income, may enable you to do this the way that you’d like to. The great thing about travel is that there’s not just one way to travel for everyone – some people like luxury travel, some people like budget travel, and some people like adventure travel, and then there are people who are in between each end of the spectrum, so there’s no right or wrong when it comes to travelling. You can choose to do it with your partner, or you may decide that you would like to go solo travelling. You could even do things like shorter city breaks, or even go on safaris and do adventurous things that you haven’t been able to do the past. If your retirement fund is generous enough then this could enable you to travel the way you really want to.
Invest in property
Depending on where your retirement fund has come from and how much you still have left to live on each month, you may want to consider investing in property in your retirement age. This could be an especially good way to use the money if, for example, your children are grown up and you’re looking to sell your family home because it’s now become too big for you. There are plenty of places to start looking for the different types of property that you could invest in with your retirement funds – whether it’s a place for yourself or a place that you would like to rent out to bring in a second income. You can have a look online at, for example, the resale hdb website to get more information on the type of options available to you when it comes to property investment and your retirement.
Start a business
So many people spend years waiting for and planning for retirement and then when it actually happens they experience something of a complete shock to the system. After a few months you realise you feel a bit bored and that you don’t really want to stop working completely, but that perhaps you don’t actually want to work for someone else anymore or that you would like to pursue a creative talent that you’ve had for a while, but never been able to pursue whilst you were working and raising a family, so now it could be the time to look at, for example, starting a business.
So many people nowadays are starting their own business, and the options out there to do so are endless and also amazing with things like social media and the internet making it so much easier than it’s ever been to get a low cost business set up and started pretty much right away. If you have years of experience to back this up then you could be good to go in a very short space of time, and the good thing about having a retirement fund there is that you still have an income coming in and you could also invest some of that money into getting business off the ground.
Many people have actually started businesses in their retirement years and have found that it really provides them with and allows them to enjoy more freedom in their life, but also to enjoy a sense of creativity and purpose because they don’t really want to just feel like they have nothing to do all day.
Give to charity
Many people are in a position where they would love to give more to charity, but it’s not always possible to give as much as they would perhaps like, due to the fact that life in and of itself is expensive, that salaries are pretty low sometimes, that there are bills to paid and other financial commitments that they have each month. So once you reach retirement age depending on how much you have available from your retirement fund and depending on the nature of the retirement funds, you could actually look at giving a little more each month if this is something that you’ve always wanted to do.
Another way to give back to charity is not always through money, but dedicating your time, so for example, you could do things like help out at local soup kitchens, schools, churches and other charitable organisations or you could even do things like volunteer in a different country and help out there. This could be a very fulfilling way to enjoy your retirement years and feel like you’re giving back to the community and making a difference in people’s lives which is really a great feeling when you’re able to do this.
Set up savings for your family
Everyone wants to be able to help out their family financially – especially when your family often end up in a generation where it’s becoming increasingly to do things like buy a home and just get by due to the economy and increasing living costs with salaries not increasing too much.
We certainly hope this post has been helpful for you in giving you some ideas around how you can use your retirement funds to enjoy your life after working all these years, and that you have been and be able to find some ways to enjoy your golden years – whether it’s travel, investing in something else such as a property, or business, it really doesn’t matter what you do with your retirement fund as long as you’re using it in a way that feels good to you and that’s not making your life worse.
Even if you choose to just use your retirement fund as a basic income each month and continue to live your life as normal, that’s perfectly fine, too, but hopefully these tips have given you some creative ideas if you are struggling with deciding what to do with the money, or if there’s any dreams that you have that you would like to fulfill, then now could be the time.
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