One of the most important aspects of financial planning is preparing for retirement. The importance of financially preparing for retirement is growing as the average life expectancy continues to rise. Planning for retirement not only assures an extra source of income but also helps you cope with unexpected medical costs, realize your life goals, and achieve financial independence.
Retirement planning is crucial for army personnel as well. After a life dedicated to serving the country, you now deserve to lead a financially stable and stressful life. Retirement planning helps with that. Let us explore retirement planning for army personnel and examine the available options.
What is retirement planning?
Retirement planning simply means ensuring a financially stable retirement by creating an adequate corpus. The appropriate investment selections may be made with the help of a well-thought-out plan for retirement, which involves estimating future cash flows and establishing long-term financial objectives.
Planning for retirement is making arrangements for when you no longer need to work. Affordability is not the only factor to consider. Lifestyle, life choices, and the question of when to retire are only a few of the non-financial factors taken into account. Financial preparation for retirement is an investment that you should be doing early in your life& best way is mutual fund investment.
Many things might go wrong in the future that could force you to spend a lot of money. For example, costs associated with illnesses and their treatment may add up quickly, as can the cost of unexpected procedures. However, with a retirement plan, you can get through these tough times.
Retirement corpus-building options
Service pension – If you are an army personnel in India, you could be eligible for a service pension. According to information from the Indian Army’s official website, officers who have served for at least 20 years are eligible to receive a retirement pension upon reaching that milestone. This is 15 years in the case of a late entrant. Pension is determined by taking either 50% of the most recent salary or an average of the past ten months’ salaries, whichever is greater.
Mutual fund SIPs – If you choose mutual funds for retirement planning, you may use a systematic investment plan (SIP) provision. You may use the SIP to invest a certain amount of money into your chosen mutual fund plan at regular intervals. For example, you may start with as little as Rs. 500 per investment and choose from weekly, monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, or annual SIP intervals. Taking the SIP path to invest allows you to invest over a certain period without reacting to short-term market fluctuations and reap the long-term benefits of average costs and compounding interest.
Recurring deposit – Term deposits that allow you to invest money in instalments are known as recurring deposits (RD). Instead of putting all of your money into a deposit at once, you may spread it out throughout the term of a recurring deposit by making equal payments at regular intervals. This is a suitable retirement fund-building option if you are a risk-averse investor. Here, too, the key is to start early.
Conclusion
Ensure that you choose an option from above according to your goals and risk appetite for the best results. Regardless of your choice, understand that it is extremely important to start investing early.