Thursday, October 22, 2009

Helpful Tips On How To Invest For Retirement

By Elisha B. Hanley

When you understand how to invest for retirement, you are well on the way to securing your financial security after your working days have finished. Feel secure in the knowledge that you have provided well for your retirement through careful and strategic financial planning while you were working.

You need to regularly check that your investments are providing you with the retirement funds you will need, and so make changes to your investment plan occasionally. Your investment strategies will be different at different times in your life. It is a good idea to regularly seek advice from a qualified financial planner, because they are up to date with all the relevant investment and taxation information and can help you decide on relevant strategies.

There are too many investment options for retirement to cover in a single article. This article presents an overview of the basic investment options open to you; take this bit of knowledge and use it to grow your retirement portfolio.

The most important aspect of investing for your retirement is to start; get started in some financial plan as early as you can. This will give you the best possible nest egg, as long as you continue to monitor the investment vehicle. The most common investment for people new to the workforce is a voluntary regular deposit into a retirement fund, which may also be contributed to by the employer. These employer matching programs, called 401K or 403B, are a great first step. The next step would be a Roth IRA because they offer tax-free investment and growth of assets.

Whole life insurance is another common retirement investment strategy, and it is a good next step after you have investigated the tax deferral options. Whole life insurance is also an important investment to have through your life, especially when you have dependants. If you find that the policy isn't needed when you are older, you can convert it to cash as one of your sources of funds in your retirement.

Because investment strategies are different for a young worker and a worker approaching retirement, you need to seek advice on the most appropriate investments for your age. Older workers may decide to invest with safe or conservative options to protect their capital, because they don't have as many working years to recoup any losses. So, corporate or government bonds, money markets and fixed-income options, may be more suitable. These don't give the same returns on investment but your assets are more protected than with higher-risk options.

Some of the other recognized retirement investments are mutual funds which invest your money, with that of other investors, in stocks and/or bonds; stocks which provide a great inflation-beating investment; cash which is one of the safest options but it can be eroded by inflationary trends; and ETF, an exchange traded fund, which, though similar to mutual funds, are usually cheaper. - 23204

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