File photo of Pensioners
By Lawrence Agbo
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Are you a retiree in Nigeria and you end up not living the life you so desire for yourself after retirement? You discover that your carefully planned retirement programme could not sustain you a few years later and you wonder what you did wrong.
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The answer to that question is that you lack proper management of your wealth after retirement. However, this article will enlighten you on how to manage your wealth after retirement by using deliberate planned strategies.
Here are 5 ways to manage your wealth after retirement.
Consider working part-time
Retirement is supposed to be a period of refraining from active duty and engaging in a part-time or remote job, but not to stop working entirely. The mistake most retirees make is that they fall back on their pension or savings and continue spending like they are used to while on active service.
That is the wrong way to manage wealth as a retiree and will only make you broke.
By engaging in a part-time job, you will be able to manage what you have saved durin your 35 years of active service, stay more informed and keep your brain active.
Doing a part-time job will also fetch you additional income that can cover some expenses. It also allows you to choose flexible hours and preferred times of work.
You can choose to teach or retail whichever is convenient for you and ensure you create a network. By doing this, you will come in contact with those who will need your services or expertise.
Look for passive income opportunities
Passive income is simply the earnings you receive from investments or business ventures that require no serious effort to maintain from the investor or retirer as this case may be.
While you are still on active service, ensure that you have a business that brings in passive income and if you don’t, endeavour to have an investment that brings in return.
In our society today, many retirees rely on this means and it seems very resourceful. You will see a 70-year-old man living flamboyantly and living a healthy life because he is sure of getting returns either weekly, monthly or even yearly. This is why retired landlords in Lagos State don’t lack.
They depend on the money for rent from tenants. Some even go as far as using a scheme that enables them to make a huge sum of money at once if the need arises by giving a tenant notice to quit to get a new one or increasing the house rent yearly.
This will enable you to reduce reliance on the money saved during your active days at work and it allows for more leisure time or the ability to pursue other interests.
Managing your expenses in retirement
The way you spend during retirement goes a long way to determining how will you manage it. This is the time for you to be honest with yourself as much as possible by avoiding unnecessary spending or a flamboyant lifestyle if you really want to manage your wealth.
To achieve this, create a comprehensive budget that will identify all your sources of income including your pension, passive income and part-time work and categorise how much you spend monthly on expenses.
You should focus more on your needs than wants at this stage and ensure you stay free from debt.
Use the 4% rule
This is one of the smartest rules to manage wealth after retirement by providing a specific guideline for withdrawal from savings annually.
This rule is designed to ensure that the savings last at least 30 years. This rule is also good for managing how you spend, especially when you know that you can’t get more than 4% of your savings annually
Move to a smaller property
After retirement, there is a need to move to a smaller property to cut expenses. If you have a property you put up for rent, you should move to one that is easy to maintain and put the expensive one up for rent.
The cost of maintaining a flamboyant lifestyle can be very expensive. So you need to watch out for that.
This is not the right time to move to a flamboyant house if you are a tenant. Rather, you should move to a cheaper apartment where you will pay less and still live comfortably.
Disclaimer
Comments expressed here do not reflect the opinions of Vanguard newspapers or any employee thereof.