Image credited to pmnewsnigeria
According
to recent research, the latest life expectancy figures reveal that a 6o year
old pensioners today are expected to live off their pension for an average of
15 years- this is nearly a quarter of their whole life. According to Robert
Kiyosaki (1999) in his book ‘Cash
flow quadrant, the Rich dad guide to financial freedom’ he noted that people
invest for two basic reasons,
To save for retirement
To
make lot of money
The first one
underscores the importance of pension schemes, it all means that you are at the
top of your game in all cases pertaining to pensions.
Yours parents or
family members have little or nothing to offer, so the earlier you start
working out plan , measures, schemes to ensure your happy retirement, the
better for you.
Experience
has shown that nearly most businesses owned both the rich and the poor all
fizzled out following the death of the bread winner or the owner of the
business.
According
to research also most family members are also enmeshed in family squabbles over
who takes over the estates of the deceased especially if he dies interstate. So
what happens if the deceased do not bequeath anything to a family member? Will they decide not to bury the deceased,
what about if the deceased willed all his or assets to charity. What will the
family members do? And even when the
family member that dies has no will, there is that squabble between the
relations and the wife and children of
the deceased, as there is unwritten maxim in Africa that the relations of the
deceased has been before the coming of the wife and children of the deceased.
This
calls for self awakening and a deliberate programme and strategies in ensuring
your own successful retirement devoid of family input.
There are steps to achieving
that and according to Wall Street cheat sheet “TCRS
offers the following three strategic steps for achieving retirement readiness
and success:
- Save for retirement. Start saving as early as possible — and as much as possible to maximize potential compounding of investments. Save consistently over time. Avoid taking loans and early withdrawals from retirement accounts as they can severely inhibit the growth of long-term retirement savings.
- Calculate retirement savings needs, develop a retirement strategy, and write it down. In creating a plan, consider lifestyle, living expenses, healthcare needs, government benefits, and other factors, as well as a backup plan in case retirement comes early due to an unforeseen circumstance.
- Get educated about retirement investing. Whether relying on the expertise of professional advisers or taking a more do-it-yourself approach, gain the knowledge to ask questions and make informed decisions. Seek assistance from a professional financial adviser, if needed.” (Wall street cheat sheet)
What we are trying to
say is that every human being should endeavor to put in place measures towards
achieving a successful retirement during old age and not to look upon family
estates as a means to survival.
Putting
a hope on family estates and parents’ retirement pot portrays a lack of
confidence among family members and in most extreme cases built up of hatred,
murder, kidnap and other vices that the love for money can aggravate.
You
can also be excluded from the will, even it exits based on family intrigues,
power play, politics and insider dealings, where one unscrupulous member may
have connived with the lawyer to doctor the will to his own advantage remember,
money has its own issues, and tendencies that seems to play when it is a huge
amount. And according to Kiyosaki “the world of money is filled with con men
and charlatans”
How
then do you deal con men and charlatans, there are no defined rules, the basic
rule is to rely on your own.
NB
: Comments and suggestions are highly welcome as no man is reservoir of
knowledge.
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