Drawing up a plan comes under three headings – define it, cost it, and fund it.
Define it
Each goal will have a different plan. Below are a series of questions to consider when drawing up a retirement plan.
- When are we looking to retire?
- Will it happen as a single major life change or a gradual transition?
- If we are looking at a gradual transition is this going to be with our current job, or will it be a new job or even a new business?
- Where will we live? Will we downsize? Will we move to an area where house prices are cheaper?
- What are we planning to do? What are our plans for retirement; some people have plans to travel, to go on holidays, to spend time with grandchildren or children.
- Who will we do it with? Are we married, divorced, have a partner, are there dependent children or other dependants?
- How much will it cost?
- Considering risk:
- What do we think about risk? What does taking risk mean to us?
- How much risk are we prepared to take to achieve our goals?
- How much risk do we need to take to have a reasonable chance of achieving sufficient growth to achieve our goals?
- How much risk can we afford to take?
Cost it
Once we have defined what we want we can cost it.
Our modelling spreadsheet takes the income you want and what investments you have and calculates how much you need to save to achieve your desired outcome.
Fund it
The final part is to fund it. This is the point where we decide on the most appropriate products and investments to achieve the end goal.