Managing your money

Managing your money when you children have flown the nest

Picture the scene – you’ve helped your children move in to their first homes, and you find yourself wondering what to do with all the spare time and money that you might now have. You might be starting to focus on yourself for once – and maybe even what your retirement might look like. We can’t promise to help with the never-ending requests for DIY support and “can you dog sit today” but here at MyRetirement, our retirement specialists can provide you with the support, guidance, and advice to manage your money towards your retirement goals.

We realise that there is a vast amount of information out there, and with good intentions this can help us all to be better informed and to help us make good decisions about our lifestyle and how to manage our money. It’s important to remember however, that you are individual, and your goals and future aspirations will be different and unique to that of your family and friends. It can be difficult to use the available information to make good decisions so here are some helpful tips to make the best of this time of your life:

1 – Re-budget your spending – this is a perfect time to re-assess your spending habits. Make room for the nice things in life, which in turn will identify ways and means that you may be able to increase the amount of savings you are able to make, to really turbo charge your retirement nest egg.

2 – Reduce your debts – this can be an emotive subject – naturally people want to be debt free, and indeed paying off the mortgage is one of life’s successes. Talk to your mortgage provider about this, check for penalties and see if there are efficient ways to reduce your debts without incurring unnecessary fees. Any shorter term or more expensive debts should be addressed as a priority ahead of retirement.

3 – Talk to your family – it’s natural to want to help your children financially at such an important time – however, this can often lead to over-support which not only makes your family less reliant and self-sufficient but can be detrimental to your own financial future. By communicating well about your family finances, and more importantly your goals and aspirations for your future (after all, you’ve spent a lifetime already looking after others!) then this should lead to a more sustainable way of providing support where it’s really needed.

4 – Know your pensions – all too often, pensions sit quietly in the background, until it finally dawns on you that retirement may not be far away. Well, if this sounds familiar and you are becoming more aware of this important need, then this could be the perfect chance to get your pensions fit for the future, and by being more engaged with what’s going on, you stand a better chance of making a real difference to what they will look like in years to come, and how they can help your retirement.

5 – Time to downsize? – if you feel like you are rattling around in a house that’s now too big and have already re-decorated the kid’s rooms, then it might time for a change. Downsizing to a more suitable house can sometimes mean that you’ve got funds left over to add to your retirement plans, giving them a timely boost to make the most of this part of your life.

These are just a few ways to begin re-focussing on what’s important to you and your retirement. For more information, support, guidance, and advice, please get in touch with one of our retirement specialists by clicking on the link below.