Retirement Planning Worksheet

Is there a good retirement planning worksheet to help you formulate your retirement goals? Actually, there are some great tools on the internet that will help you decide where you want to go during retirement.

To accomplish financial freedom during retirement, some planning is certainly required. It often is a result of several different umbrellas like 401k, 403b, Conventional IRA, Roth Ira, Annuity, Real Estate holding. All of these will work together to help you reach your retirement goals.

All of these different avenues certainly are growth oriented. Most offer tax advantages, but each taxes advantage is not the same: some grow tax deferred, some grow tax free. Keeping this principles in the forefront, here is some advice to help you find the best investments for your retirement.

The 401k is an avenue for employees to defer a portion of their income into a mutual fund for retirement income. Each employer varies by how much money they are willing to match towards your account.

Many employers match dollar for dollar. Generally speaking, 15% is the ceiling amount you are allowed to contribute towards this fund, and generally the employee will match up to 5%.

You should be reaping the full rewards of this plan because it is essentially a risk free return on your money. for all the money you put forth, the employer will match that as far as 5% of your paycheck, giving you an immediate 100% return on your investment.

Keep in mind; all these avenues are great, but without a lifestyle plan for how you want to live upon retirement, planning out your investments is essentially pointless. First of all, you need to sit down and figure out how you want to live your golden years. Don’t hold anything back during the retirement planning.

Just because something sounds outrageous and far fetched doesn’t mean you should write it off; the retirement years are the time for doing your life goals that you were unable to achieve because of work.

Now that you have this plan down on paper, you can take it to a financial advisor who will help you to map out a plan to achieve those goals. First of all, take advantage of the above investment opportunities; after that, listen carefully to what your financial planner tells you.

Follow the retirement planning worksheet they lay out for you, and you are well on your way to a long and healthy retirement.