There is little more adult-like than starting to talk about pensions, putting things in place for our children’s futures and that sort of thing. Our future finances are something that we’ve been talking about recently because at the end of the day, one day our boys will be grown, we will be looking at retiring and we do want to spend our later years doing things that we want. Like everyone else, unless we start playing the lottery and win, we are going to have to find another way to fund our future bucket list or dream shopping list.
The beauty of the modern world is that you have options these days when it comes to arranging how your future finances will look. Here are just some of the things that you can look at doing in order to make sure you have pennies available for later in life.
Savings
We are diligent when it comes to savings. The first thing we do every month is put money into our pots before paying bills or anything else. I used to find that if I waited to see what was left at the end of the month before saving, that for whatever reason, there wouldn’t be anything left. Funny old thing that.
We split our savings so that we have rainy day savings, car/maintenance savings, future “don’t touch this” savings and so on.
Property
I know many people who are planning on using their property once their mortgages are paid off to work as a kind of pension for their future. I know others who plan on using their property some way to help them fund their retirement bucket list. I think this is a great way to maximise (and fund) the fun and mischief that you can get up to later on down the road. Having bought a house and paid it off, you have much more flexibility in how you will fund your future financial needs.
Pensions
Pensions are important. You can find out how much your state pension will likely look like by registering with HMRC and looking on your online tax account. There are numerous things that may affect how much state pension you will get. It isn’t likely to be enough to live on.
We have worked hard to maximise what we will get back from our pensions and the workplace pensions can be brilliant if you have the right provider and a decent employer. I am not employed, being a freelance copywriter and of course, therefore, don’t have a workplace pension. There are other private pensions available however so thankfully we’re covered.
Lottery Win
A substantial win on the National Lottery could very well cover our future finances in terms of allowing us to do what we want to do once we’ve retired. The thing is, I’m not one for gambling on my future and at £2 a line I’d rather put my pennies into savings.
Bucket List
What are our future finances for? We have big plans, small plans and of course, we want to be able to be comfortable when we are no longer working. Just some of our plans include travel, learning new skills and perhaps some smaller local projects that we’d love to have the time and money to help with, without compromising on paying our bills.
Your Future Finances: The Conclusion
While saving towards your future finances and looking for ways to fund your later years is nowhere near as exciting as spending your pennies on fun now, there’s a good chance that down the road that you will wish that you had. Think carefully about how you will manage later on, as tomorrow comes around quicker than we’d like, and get proper advice on how to manage your pensions, savings, property matters and more.
