As we progress through the stages of life, holding on to high-quality financial security habits becomes even more important. At each step, a robust savings strategy is necessary to get through the hard times that are sure to arrive at a moment’s notice. But as we prepare for retirement and beyond, a firm financial grasp is essential to maintaining a quality of life that resembles the previous 40 years and even exceeds it.
Save as much as you can.
Ideally, you would have started saving as a teenager. On average, your invested capital tends to double every seven years, meaning that if you had started saving at eighteen your money would double six times or more before reaching retirement age. However, not everyone started early, and thankfully there is still time to create long-term wealth, even if you are just starting to think about retirement savings a few years before you reach it.
With security-minded commodities, you can create stable growth that provides a decent dividend yield every year to supplement your Social Security checks and any other pension funding you have accrued throughout your time in the workforce. Initially, these returns may seem modest, but in time they will continue to grow, increasing in volume and therefore stability returned to your wallet over the long term.
Another commodity that retirees seek out in droves is real estate property. Homes that you can keep rented throughout the year provide a fantastic return on investment that can be channeled into debt repayment, additional investment opportunities, or directly into your checking account.
Creating income streams with your savings that pay you back every month will help you manage any cash flow issues that may present themselves as you transition from full-time employment — and therefore a full-time salary — into retirement where your savings account and years of paying taxes are the only things propping you up financially. This dramatic change can take some time to get used to, so investing carefully in stocks, bonds, and other ventures that provide long term stability is crucial at this point in life.
Invest in yourself, too.
Not only must you invest in your financial future, but you also need to spend money on the things that make you happy. While happiness certainly can’t be bought, smart money management definitely helps keep stress away. This means keeping credit card balances low, but it also means splurging on things that you enjoy even while you work hard to maintain your frugality, of course.
Entertainment purchases, health supplements (like CBD beauty products), and Chico’s Off the Rack outlet shopping for clothing can all be found at affordable prices, you just have to spend the effort to find the best deals available to you. Seeking out beauty products and clothing at discount rates is a great way to double down on the good feelings that come along with new wardrobe pieces. Saving on your favorite brands gives you access to both the clothing you love and the addition of extra cash in your pocket!
CBD, in particular, can be a great help in alleviating levels of stress and anxiousness. The cannabinoid is found in the hemp plant, or cannabis plant, and gives patients suffering from all manner of inflammation, anxiety, and stress a unique and powerful reprieve from these issues without the intoxicating effects common with other cannabis plant products.
Likewise, even though retirees no longer commute every day to the office, taking vacations is still essential to solid mental health. We often burn the candle at both ends, even after our “working years” have ended, and many retirees begin volunteering a major portion of their time or even take on new part-time work to keep them busy. Treating yourself to a break is just as important during this time as it was while you were stuck at the office for hours each business day in your younger years.
You can also rack up major savings by purchasing package holidays or bagging special savings during final sale periods just before the travel date. With all that extra time that was once spent working, you can now take advantage of off-season travel discounts or last-minute bookings that simply weren’t feasible just a few years prior.
How a viatical settlement can help.
A viatical settlement is a great way to lift your plans off the ground. Viatical settlements essentially are a trade-in of your existing life insurance plan. Life insurance providers take a premium from you — a monthly payment — in exchange for the promise to pay out the death benefit upon your passing to whomever you name as a beneficiary of the policy. Often times, seniors buy life insurance in order to protect loved ones from accrued debt that can eat away at large portions of the inheritance they hope to leave behind. Your mortgage, unresolved medical bills, or credit card debt all can act to disintegrate the value of a will’s bequeathment. Life insurance provides a shield to this deterioration of value.
As a brief aside on this matter, writing a will is also a paramount consideration for anyone thinking of taking out life insurance or of selling the policy as part of a viatical settlement. A will is your most important safeguard against probate court proceedings that can take weeks or months to settle an inheritance account. While your loved ones will ultimately prevail in any court-related issues pertaining to the transfer of your property, the fact that they have to struggle to take ownership and may have to pay additional taxes as a lack of estate planning before your passing should be troubling to everyone. A will is a crucial ingredient to a smooth transfer of property during a time of great stress and grief.
However, before you pass, you can take advantage of the cash value of your life insurance policy through the use of one of many viatical settlement providers. A viatical settlement allows you to shrug off these monthly premiums that may no longer be beneficial to you anyway. In exchange for a lump sum cash payout generally equal to about 60% of the death benefit you can relieve yourself of this financial burden and utilize the equity in it right away — and for whatever you want to spend it on.
Because life insurance at this stage is often a hedge against debts, those who have paid down the mortgage on their homes and are free of credit card debt might consider this option as a quasi-investment opportunity. The security provided by the life insurance policy is no longer needed, so you can transfer the cash value out of the vehicle and place it elsewhere. Enrollment in a life insurance policy is fairly straightforward, and so is the viatical settlement process. A third party viatical settlement contract requires some simple data input and is intuitive. Settlement processes are often quick, and you receive the cash payout promptly so that you can transition the funding into whatever investment or purchase you’d like with little lag time.
Viatical settlements are a great way to jump-start your investment portfolio if you are someone with minimal debts. In this instance, you can funnel nearly the entire sum into your existing investment channels and begin to turn a profit on the capital in hours or days. If you time this exit from your life insurance policy to coincide with an ex-dividend date, you might even be able to energize your portfolio with a massive dividend payment as a result of strategic movement into a particular stock just before its payday.
Giving life to your investments is the best way to protect your principal investment and increase the monthly interest you receive so that you can live the life you’ve always dreamed of while leaving behind an inheritance for your children to build the same.
