How can you achieve your financial goals post-retirement?

Planning for retirement is one of the goals that we pursue to live a comfortable life after we retire. However, retirement only puts a comma in the daily expenses and not a full stop. Thus, experts say it is important to keep on making and achieving your financial goals post-retirement. Anup Bansal, Chief Business Officer, Scripbox explains, “These financial goals unlike retirement planning are short to medium term and can be divided into three major categories.” i) Maintaining a comfortable lifestyle, ii) Health expenses, iii) Maintaining an emergency fund. Maintaining a comfortable lifestyle Post-retirement, along with a pension, you can opt for a Systematic Withdrawal Plan (SWP) which will let you withdraw a certain percentage amount as income from your retirement fund. Bansal points out, “This ensures that one can have a comfortable lifestyle while also maintaining his/her funds afloat.” SWPs keep the remaining funds invested, providing you with the benefits of upside potential and are tax-efficient. Overall, experts say you can maintain a comfortable lifestyle for yourself and your family post-retirement, too. Taking care of health expenses Health expenses become a major part of life as you grow older. Bansal points out, “With rising prices and medical inflation, it can be a challenge for one to meet these expenses when one has no income inflow other than one’s retirement income.” Thus, he further adds, “it is better that one foresee this expense and plan for it in advance by opting for a larger sum for the medical policy. Also, one should cover his/ her spouse under it and increase the policy amount from time to time.” Saving for an emergency fund As you have already planned for your retirement, you have a fund that provides you with regular income. However, according to industry experts, if an emergency occurs, you might find yourself short on covering it, which is why maintaining an emergency is equally important in your post-retirement life as it was before that. The ideal amount as suggested by experts is six to eight months of one’s monthly expenses, which should be accumulated slowly over time. The best way to do so, Bansal adds “is to have investments in liquid funds, i.e. savings accounts, FDs, etc. that allows one to withdraw funds instantly.”