It is easy to go through your early adult years without concern for retirement. During those years, you are young and carefree, and you think you have plenty of time to plan for retirement later. Also, while trying to get yourself established, some feel there is no money left over to save for retirement. However, time has a way of creeping up on you, and before you know it, you are 35 and haven’t saved a dime for retirement.

It is easy to stress out when your friends are talking about how their retirement funds are allocated, and you don’t have any funds to allocate. At 35, you may be getting a later start than some, but you still have three decades to save. With the right retirement plan in place, you can still have a wonderful retirement without financial worry.

Develop a Plan

Before you start throwing money haphazardly around, it is best to develop a sound retirement plan. You can read a dozen different experts’ advice regarding their idea of what the best retirement plan is, and it actually may benefit you to read the logic behind each one. However, each person is unique and will have individual goals and objectives. After reading the logic behind different retirement planning strategies, develop your own investment plan. Establish a target goal and estimated year of retirement. Then, determine what it will take for you to reach your goal.

Improve Your Financial Situation

One aspect of developing your retirement plan involves preparing an estimated budget for yourself three decades from now. That can be difficult because you may not know exactly what your housing situation will be like or even how much a loaf of bread will cost. The best you can do is estimate and make adjustments for inflation. However, one firm step that you can take is to improve your financial situation. Adjust your current budget and spending habits to allow for greater savings and retirement contributions. Plan for more modest and affordable vacations so that you can pay off some debts. When you retire debt-free, you need much less cash to live on.

Max Out Your Registered Retirement Saving Plan

If you are one of the many millions of adults who work for an employer with an employer-matching RRSP program, RUN, do not walk to your HR department today and take advantage of that program. Whether your employer matches 50 cents on the dollar, dollar for dollar up to three percent of your income or something else, this is essentially free retirement money, so don’t leave it on the table!

Explore Other Avenues for Savings

Once you have fully taken advantage of the employer-matching RRSP program available to you, consider investing any additional money you have left over for retirement in a TFSA. Even if you can only save $500 per year into this account right now, every little bit helps. The benefit of compounding interest over time will grow your money over the next few decades. If you have maxed out your TFSA, you can consider investing money into a non-retirement stock account, in real estate or in another investment vehicle.

Invest Aggressively

Many adults are confused about whether to invest aggressively in their thirties. Many experts recommend that you allocate up to 80 or 90 percent of your retirement funds into aggressive stocks. Your comfort level will dictate your exact allocation. However, with approximately three decades until retirement, an aggressive growth plan is ideal for most.

Use Raises Wisely

Once you have developed and established a retirement plan, you can sit back and let automatic bank drafts, dividend reinvestment programs and other automated investment features do their work. However, looking forward, you do want to take steps to increase savings and retirement contributions over time. When you pay debts off, use the additional money as retirement contributions. When you get raises, bump up your retirement savings rather than adjust your lifestyle. If you can live on a paycheck of your current size comfortably now, you can continue to do so for the next few years while you use your raises to supplement your retirement efforts.

It can be unnerving to come to the realization that you are 35 years old and have not yet started saving for retirement. However, you can quickly change that by following these tips. By getting started today, you will be well on your way to funding a great retirement portfolio. Compound interest is key to your success, so start today. Every dollar you put away now will be worth substantially more than a dollar saved 30 years from now due to compound interest.

The decision to purchase a home, any home, is a big one. It means more responsibility, less flexibility when it comes time to move, and a mortgage. However, financially speaking, purchasing is a better investment more times than not.

When you lease your home, the money you pay in rent each month will never be in your possession again. It’s gone forever. However, when you buy a home, the money you pay towards your mortgage each month goes toward the equity of your home. That means that whenever you decide to sell your home, you could potentially see all of the money
you paid return to you (minus interest, of course).

One of the benefits of purchasing a condo as opposed to a stand alone house is that there are fewer maintenance requirements of you. The property managers will make sure the exterior of the condo, the shared common areas, and the landscaping is maintained. Your only maintenance responsibilities are within the wall of your condo. That said, part of the fees you pay when you live in a condo go into a reserve fund that is used to pay for all of the maintenance you don’t have to do. If the reserve fund ever gets too low, each condo owner will have to pay their share of any expenses that exceed what is in the fund.

Living in a communal property has its advantages and disadvantages. The advantages include the low maintenance, the amenities such as a pool, fitness center, parking garage, or retail stores, and the energy efficiency. Because not all of your walls will be exterior walls, your energy requirements will be less because the condos above and to the side of you insulate you.

The disadvantages to living in a condo are that somebody lives above and/or beside you, you have to share the amenities, and you have to abide by the rules of the community. While your neighbors may insulate your unit, they could also be loud. Most condos are built with sound proofing in mind, but there’s always that one person who likes to rattle the walls with a subwoofer. The rules of the community that governs the facility may include whether or not pets are allowed, certain age restrictions on residents, and whether or not condos can be leased to others. These are things you should ask before purchasing your new home so you are able to make an informed decision.

As with any real estate purchase, it’s all about location. It doesn’t matter if you are looking to purchase a house or a condo, Austin or Toronto, to lease or to live in, location is key. Consider the distance to work and to retail stores, the neighborhood surrounding the property, and the proximity to public transportation or major roadways.

Planning for retirement has never been more important. However, how should you make sure that when you retire you have enough money to continue to enjoy your current standard of living?

There are many things that you can do to ensure that you are dealing with your current earnings sensibly so that you know they will enable you to enjoy a comfortable retirement, and here are a few of the most important.

Start Saving Now

When it comes to saving for retirement, the earlier you start the better. You are never too young to save for retirement, so start putting aside anything that you can afford right now so that you can slowly start to build up your nest egg.

If you want to find out how much you are on course to have when you reach retirement age, use an income calculator that you can find online for free. This can help you to understand what action you need to take to reach your financial goal.

Open an RRSP

One of the most popular retirement saving options is to set up a Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP). You can deposit money into this on a regular basis, and as long as the funds stay in the plan they will remain tax free, making it a very efficient way to save for retirement.

This is a way to privately contribute to your retirement savings in addition to the contributions that you make to the Canada Pension Plan (CPP). You can pay into the account until you are 71, but there is an annual cap on how much you can save, and this tends to go up slightly each year.

When you reach 71, you can either cash it out or let in mature into a Registered Retirement Income Fund (RRIF).

Consider Your Investment Options

As well as your pension and any savings you may privately accrue in your RRSP, there are other investment options that you may want to consider. Which of these you choose to use will depend upon your personal situation, so it is best to get specialist advice to help you to decide.

For example, you may want to consider segregated fund policies where you will be able to get a guaranteed lifetime income, or a Locked-In Retirement Income Fund (LRIF), where your investment returns determine the maximum payments.

Manage Your Investments Carefully

Whatever investments you set up during your lifetime, including bonds, fixed-income investments and equities, make sure that as you approach retirement age you focus on more predictable investments. Some investments are more risky than others, and if anything goes wrong then you will have less time to recover.

Reverse Mortgage

If you find when you reach retirement age that you do not have enough to maintain your desired lifestyle, one option could be a reverse mortgage. You may be able to qualify for this if you are over 62, mortgage free and plan to remain living in your home.

If you are struggling to make ends meet because of fixed income then you have probably already heard that a reverse mortgage may be able to help you. Such a home equity conversion loan (HECM) works differently from a standard mortgage because you will not be expected to pay any part of it back right away. You will not receive a bill in the mail every month from your reverse mortgage lender, but you will have to pay interest, as you would with any other loan. You will also still fully own your home when you sign up for loan of this sort, and it cannot be sold unless you give up that ownership voluntarily or pass away.

However, it is better to plan for your retirement early on so that you do not need to get access to extra cash in this way.

Start Preparing for Your Retirement Today

The sooner you start preparing for your retirement, the better. Your retirement may seem a long way off, but if you leave it too late to start saving and making investments, you could find that when you reach retirement age you do not have enough money to maintain the lifestyle that you want. So start considering your options today, and start saving for a happy retirement.