Have you ever envisioned what your life would be like say 20, 30 or 40 years from now—in retirement? Will you travel the world? Start a side gig? Spend the winter months at your second home … right on the beach? There’s no right or wrong answer. After all, dream retirements are a bit like snowflakes—no two are exactly alike. There is, however, one thing that remains the same for everyone: fulfilling that wish list for your retirement.

During the course of your working life, you work hard to fulfill major life goals such as buying a house, child’s education and marriage, vacation for the family, buying a bigger car, etc. In the midst of all these priorities, which are no doubt very important, the goal of Retirement Planning invariably ends up taking a backseat.

Most people start planning for their retirement very late which leaves little scope for building an adequate retirement corpus which will fully take care of them during their golden years. On account of a late start, they are unable to fully capitalize on the power of compounding for their investments.

Remember, you can take a loan for funding your child’s education or for buying a house, but you will never ever get a loan for financing your retirement. Hence, the importance of Retirement Planning can never be over-emphasized. The earlier you start, the better it is for you as your investments get a relatively longer time-frame to grow and appreciate in value. Retirement is a time for enjoying life to its full potential and for nurturing hobbies and interests which you could not dedicate time for on account of professional commitments; it should be completely hassle-free from a financial perspective.

It is obvious that your financial responsibilities will grow once you approach your fifties. To live comfortably in the golden years, you need to follow three mantras to create an adequate corpus – Start Early, Choose Investments Wisely and Be Persistent. To begin with, estimate how much money you would need to accumulate for leading a comfortable retired life. Once this is done, ascertain how price rise (or inflation) will affect future expenses – do not forget to factor in inflation while ascertaining the retirement corpus that you will need.

There are many advantages associated with starting to plan for your retirement at an early stage in life. An ideal financial plan for retirement must incorporate the following salient points:-

• Setting aside atleast 10% of your salary for investments
• Keeping on increasing your investments periodically with any increase in income
• Not dipping into your retirement corpus prior to retirement for fulfilling other life goals
• Planning a systematic withdrawal plan to avoid unexpected costs
• Building discipline in savings month-on-month and spending only whatever is left after having apportioned the monthly savings out of your income

A few salient points that you need to bear in mind to live comfortably in your golden years and ensure a hassle-free retirement are mentioned below:-

• Do not underestimate future expenses – There will be a definite reduction in expenses like EMIs, daily commuting and children’s education after your retirement, however, medical expenses are bound to shoot up significantly post retirement. Your expenses will also depend on the lifestyle that you choose to lead after retirement.
• Inflation – The impact of inflation is often ignored while planning for retirement – this can be a serious mistake as inflation can severely hamper your standard of living post retirement. To avoid inflation from eating into your retirement corpus, invest a sizeable portion of your retirement contribution in the time tested inflation beating asset class like equities.
• Pay heed to Longevity Risk – You will run the risk of exhausting your retirement funds if you live longer. Deal with this risk by maintaining a reasonable exposure to equities even during your post retirement years.
• Taxes – Deal with tax uncertainties in later years by considering a conservative approach while budgeting your post retirement tax liability.
• Avoid overestimating portfolio returns – A shift from high risk asset classes to low risk ones will reduce the overall returns from your post retirement corpus. Failure to factor in such dips in your portfolio returns can adversely impact your post retired life and you may be forced to downgrade your lifestyle
• Medical Inflation – Healthcare services in India have witnessed a high rate of inflation in recent years and this is expected to grow even further in the future.

Founded in 2005 by new–age entrepreneur Abhishek Bansal, the Abans Group has evolved into a globally diversified conglomerate, providing expertise in Broking Services, Non-Banking Financial Dealings, Financial Services, Agri-Commodity Services, Warehousing, Realty & Infrastructure, Gold Dore Refinery & Manufacturing, Trading in Metal Products, Pharmaceuticals, Software Development & Wealth Management. The Group is a comprehensive financial and non-financial services and solutions provider, aiming to provide end-to-end solutions to its clients.