You’ve nurtured, maintained, and protected your family’s future. With one eye on retirement, you have many priorities and your near-future well-being is likely to be a top contender.
You may start reducing your hours at work for greater work-life balance as your children start creating their own families. Managing passive income well means you’ll be able to spend more time with your young grandchildren.
During this period, you may receive an inheritance or start to see earlier investments come to fruition. With a few more years of earning potential, you are motivated to get your money working hard for you.
Time is of the essence. Are you prepared?
As you approach retirement, time becomes increasingly important. Are you clear on the life you want in retirement, and have you correctly structured your finances to meet those goals? By breaking down your plans into short, medium, and long-term steps, you can ensure you're on track to achieve the retirement you've envisioned.
In the next 2, 5, and 10 years, consider what’s ahead: Are you planning a dream holiday, paying off your mortgage, downsizing, supporting your adult children through education or home purchases, or perhaps starting to reduce your working hours?
Short-term: Focusing on the immediate
It’s a good time to review your superannuation and solidify your financial foundation for retirement. Balancing living costs with expected income or savings is key in creating the right plan to serve you throughout retirement. You might consider adjusting your spending or cutting out unnecessary costs in the lead-up to your golden years.
If you have elderly parents or relatives you may wish to meet with an aged care specialist advisor to help navigate the complex world of aged care and home care options so you are prepared if the need arises.
Medium-term: What’s next?
You might feel your investment strategy is fast approaching a level of risk you aren’t comfortable with anymore. As you move through the years, risk tolerance, wealth structures, insurances (health, life, TPD, etc.), may no longer be fit for purpose. Succession planning or selling your business might become a key medium-term priority. You may wonder, am I really prepared for retirement?
Long-term: Preparing for your future
If you have elderly parents or relatives, you may be faced with deciding how to financially support and care for them as they age, whether that be through in-home care, or in aged care.
Aged care can be a complex and quite often emotional topic for many families. Speaking to an experienced financial advisor can help you navigate the aged care journey and plan effective options. It can also be a good way of keeping family discussions calm and professional when emotions may be running high.