There are three very important things that baby boomers need to pay attention to when it comes to making plans for their retirements. Most individuals in this generation are not actively involved with where their money is. Either they have turned it over to family or a bank, trusting that they will handle it properly or they just do not keep track of their spending at all. Most individuals in this generation are not fully educated on asset retention and do not have a solid plan for their retirement. Understanding the three biggest mistakes that baby boomers make and having the knowledge on how to combat them can help create a more solid plan for retirement before it is too late.
Turning Your Money Over
Not being active in your finances at all, nonetheless not being active in your investments is always a mistake. It may seem easier to hand your money over to a financial planner and hope for the best but this will not be fruitful in the long run. When you entrust a financial planner to handle all of your assets and investments, all the information you are given overtime is in projections that they give you in their reports. More often than not, these projections are not in layman’s terms and hard for the average person to understand completely. If you do not understand something, you cannot verify it. This opens the door to be easily tricked or lied to without the knowledge to know when it is happening. This is why it is important to be vigilant with what is happening to your money.
Assets
Assets are an important part of planning for retirement. There are different types of assets that someone can have. If you buy depreciating assets instead of appreciating assets, you are hurting yourself in the long run. In the hunt to try to “keep up with the Jones’” you are hurting yourself more than you think. It may be nice at the time to live a life that looks valuable to those around you but those things that you spend all of your money on will lose value over time. It is more important to focus on appreciating assets that will build your initial investment in them over time.
The Reality
Most baby boomers have less than ten thousand dollars in their bank accounts. This is not enough to plan a retirement around, especially if you have a future with foreseeable medical issues. If you do not take the time to be informed of your own investments and the status of your own investments, then you have no one to blame but yourself. You have to take the time to educate yourself on these matters so that you can make the decisions on your own without the opportunity to be taken advantage of.
Conclusion
Retirement is something that you need to plan ahead for. It is not something that can be left till the last minute. It takes planning, knowledge and the right investments and asset retention. When you understand what these common mistakes baby boomers are making for their retirement are, then you can understand how to plan to avoid them. It is less about “keeping up with the Jones’” and more about maintaining your lifestyle for longer without having to worry about depending on anyone else. Be active in your investing, educate yourself on the right assets you should have and retire in a place of comfort and safety.