After you have taken the time to sit down with all of your assets and investments in front of you, you might have found some things that you feel need to be changed or replaced. However, it’s important that you don’t just dive in and start moving thing without any research. When you try to consolidate your retirement money, it can take some fine tuning to be sure that everything is working like a finely oiled machine. In order to prepare your portfolio properly, you will have to take a couple of things into consideration because this is essentially planning your entire future around what kind of capital gains you can expect to see.
Consolidating Your Retirement Money for Success
When you start trying to plan for the future, you will first need to figure out just how much money you are going to need to maintain whatever standard of living you are planning for your retirement years. It’s important to factor in any changes that might affect your budget. For example, pay attention to the fact that your utility bills may rise when you are home more, although you will be spending less on gas by not driving to work. Also, take into consideration any lifestyle changes that you want to make in your retirement like more travel or moving to a different town. Looking at your future budget is an integral part of consolidating your retirement money to make sure that you are comfortable.
Your next step is to see how much your current assets will be worth by the time you reach retirement age. Try looking up a time-value-of-money calculator in order to factor in inflation as well. After you get this number, then factor in your pension or social security benefits, as well. This should give you a good idea of whether or not your investment strategies are going to be appropriate for your retirement needs.
Planning Properly for Consolidating Your Retirement Money
Now that you have a budget in place for your retirement costs and you have all of your assets organized properly, it’s time for you to think about how to plan for the future that you envision. This is the point that you might consider seeking the assistance of a financial planner if you have not done so already.
Even if you decide to take on your financial planning and your goal to consolidate your retirement money on your own, then you should take into account all of the what-ifs that can come along. It can be a good idea to try to plan for all eventualities, because once you are not employed by others or making a stable income anymore, an accident can really be damaging to your household.
Take a Second Look At Your Assets
After you have a financial plan in place for your future and you know what you need to do in order to consolidate your retirement money, for the most part, then your next step is go back over your assets again. Pay attention to your portfolio and ensure that you are keeping it well diversified while comparing it to your new financial plan. If you are coming up short, then it might be the time to become a little bit more aggressive with some of your investments in order to make up some lost income.
You should also take into consideration those time horizons. If you are trying to retire in just a few years, then you probably want to stop thinking so far out and make some adjustments to your investments so that there is less of a chance of you losing as much money. Try to keep at least some risk involved so that you can gain higher from it, but consider moving more of your money into areas that aren’t as high growth so that you have income waiting on you when you retire.
Wrapping It All Up
You should be in a place now where you understand exactly what you have to do to consolidate your retirement money and set yourself up for a comfortable and possibly even successful life after employment. Making a financial plan for the future that you look forward to is certainly a necessary part of investing your money in the most effective manner and getting the most payout from it. While you should never just go in and play with your portfolio without doing a good amount of research first, don’t be too wary of making any important changes to keep your investments in line. Whether you decide to take this on by yourself or with the help of a qualified financial advisor, you should look at revisiting your plans and your portfolio at least once a year to better prepare yourself for any eventuality that you might encounter in your retirement. With proper planning you can easily achieve everything you want in your golden years!
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