Be honest, when you were young you probably rarely ever thought that much about money. Most people are exactly the same, after all, why would you. If you have a good income, you can afford to buy what you want or what you need, and perhaps you’ll save the rest. Or, maybe you’ll spend it on other little luxuries that you want or need. Now wouldn’t that be wonderful? You can do that, because you know next month another paycheck will come in, and you’ll have more money to spend. So it goes on, if you’re lucky without any period of redundancy, up until the point when you retire. After that things change.
Suddenly, you don’t have a fixed income anymore and instead, you need to rely on savings as well as your state pension. Your quality of life might depend on how effectively you have saved through the years. If you’ve done well, you might find that you’re living quite comfortably, even taking annual holidays. If you haven’t saved as much as you should, you might find yourself living on quite a tight budget. This is certainly the first main cost concern for the elderly.
How Much Should You Save?
The problem with this, of course, is that you’ll need to start saving right now, no matter what age you are. If you have a fixed income economic experts recommend that you save as much as a quarter of your paycheck. For many people, this isn’t going to leave much left over for luxuries. Though, if you’re living on an average income this might simply be because you’re not budgeting effectively. You should be thinking about spending less through the months, cutting down in areas that won’t affect your quality of life.
A key area to save would be on energy bills. Try using less energy in your home and consider getting a smart meter installed. This will allow you to keep an accurate check on how much energy you’re spending. If you see that certain appliances are costing you more, you can switch them off or even get them replaced. That’s just one of the ways you can afford to save more of your paycheck without cutting back in areas of life that you enjoy. It will certainly help when you reach your twilight years.
The other thing about your savings to remember is that they are not a holiday fund. Nor are they a way for you to buy a new car. These savings are specifically for the time when you don’t have an income to rely on, and no matter what, you shouldn’t be breaking into your pension pot. A lot of people right now are spending their pension pot early and finding they have nothing left when retirement comes around.
Expensive Purchases
After you retire one of the biggest problems is expensive purchases. Things that you need that, if you had an income would be manageable but when you don’t, can be a horrible nightmare. For instance, you might need a car. Despite not having a job it is still important that the elderly have a form of transportation otherwise they can quickly become detached from society. Some people switch to public transport at this point, but others prefer to still drive. What are your options for this type of purchase? Well, you can look into car finance possibilities such as Approvenow. With a service such as this, it’s possible to get the car finance option that you need as soon as possible and make sure you can start driving immediately. These options are even available if you have bad credit and unfortunately, a lot of elderly people do. When you’re older, bills become more difficult to manage, and this can lead to them being paid late.
Of course, a car isn’t the only expensive purchase that you might want or need during your twilight years. Perhaps, you would like to take that around the world cruise. If that’s the case, you’re going to need at least a few thousand. It would be great if you had that in savings, but the fact is you might not. The answer is a loan that you’ll be able to pay back gradually over a few years. If you did manage to save for your retirement, you should have enough for this type of repayment option.
Property Considerations
Before you retire, you should think about buying some property. Renting your entire life gives you no capital to fall back on when your time working does come to an end. By having a home, you can sell it off when you retire, hopefully at a profit. Immediately this frees up a lot of capital. At that point, you can move into a retirement living area, or you can choose a smaller home like a bungalow. This will still leave a lot of capital left over and help you pay for the retirement lifestyle that you deserve.
Alternatively, you can keep the large house that you might own now and take out a loan to pay for larger luxuries during your retirement such as those holidays. By doing this, you will be able to use the money that is rightfully yours without selling your home.
Health Care Costs
Finally, you do need to think about the cost of healthcare once you retire. It’s fair to say that the cost of health is significantly higher for the elderly, even though it shouldn’t be. You might need more medicine, further medical treatment and even medical tech that may, in fact, be unavoidable. The best way to prepare for this is to make sure you are on a health insurance scheme that covers most of the issues for the smallest possible cost. That way you can make sure that the cost of your health doesn’t drain all the money you want to spend on what should be some of the best years of your life.
As you can see then, there are a lot of financial considerations for the elderly. You need to be smart and start thinking about how to prepare for these issues and make sure you are set for the future.
Tammie~