subject: How To Invest For Retirement In A Tough Economy [print this page] Learning how to invest for retirement is an important aspect of securing your financial future. As you move through your working life, you need to be confident that you have made the right investment decisions to be able to fund the years when you are enjoying your well-earned break.
The key to having this confidence is regularly checking that you have the best financial plan available; you may need to make changes from time to time. Your strategy will be different in every stage of your life, especially as you near retirement. For this purpose, a financial adviser is a reliable source of the latest information relating to investments, taxation and financial returns.
There are numerous options for retirement investment, and in this short article it is impossible to mention them all. These tips will provide you with some basic information that you can then build on, to find the best financial vehicles to fund your retirement.
Where do you start with investing for your retirement? Good question, but the answer is that it doesn't so much matter where you start, but that you DO actually start. Too many people put off starting to invest for their retirement and lose valuable growth of their money. Voluntary deposits into a retirement fund are the usual place to start, as many employers carry employer-matching programs, 401K and 403B. After this, a Roth IRA is a good plan to set up because they are a tax-free investment opportunity for the growth of your assets.
Life insurance can be a useful investment tool to add to your financial plan, after the deferred tax options. Whole life insurance is an important investment when you have a growing family, but you may find that you don't need it when you get older. It then becomes a useful source of cash during your retirement; it is actually a good idea to have several cash sources during 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 other types of retirement investments that you can consider are bonds because they represent a stable investment; mutual funds that make investments using their investors' money; stocks which have a proven record of beating inflation; exchange traded funds or ETFs which are often a cheaper option than mutual funds; cash, a safe option although growth can be affected by inflation.
by: Wayne Sather
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