It’s been a couple of months since our last blog and in that time, Chris completed the London Marathon whilst raising funds for Children with Cancer - an incredibly worthy charity who will obtain £2.5k for his efforts. A personal goal was also achieved as every mile was completed under the watchful eye of his eldest son Ollie. Chris had always dreamt of completing the iconic road race with his son present and who knows, maybe one day they’ll complete it together.
Much of life is about making memories as time does not stand still. This is why we at Voyage FP believe it is so important to plan for the future as best we possibly can.
Marathon training can be like retirement planning in the sense that you can’t cheat the training to be fit and ready to compete the run. You also can’t cheat planning for your retirement, there are things we must do to be fit and ready to be in the best retirement shape.
A large proportion of society describe that they will keep working until they can’t work any more as they can’t afford not to work - it doesn’t have to be like this.
Wouldn’t it be great if we took control of our future and therefore had the ability to decide if we wanted to keep working or not. If we have the financial capabilities behind us to make these choices it gives us the ability to decide.
Let’s put this another way - When we purchase a property, we know it will take around 35 years to pay off the mortgage and generally speaking we set it to end before we enter anticipated retirement. We appreciate and understand that, unless we come into a significant amount of money, we have to take a long-term view of paying down this mortgage. At the end of the 35 years, we own a property outright and mortgage free. At this point we don’t have a mortgage to pay but we still have fixed costs to pay for such as council tax, gas, electric, water, cars, good etc. if you’re not working, how are you paying for these things?
Training for a marathon ensures we complete the race. Paying off a mortgage over 35 years ensures that we own our homes outright. We need to consider retirement planning in the same fashion - we need to put the preparation in to achieve the goal. The retirement goal can be very simple: maintaining a certain standard of living in retirement.
When we retire, in very simple terms, pension income replaces the income we lose from our employer. That is something you really want to be planning for if you want to ensure that you maintain the standard of living that you are accustomed to.
Try to picture yourself as a 65 year old and ask yourself; “do I regret not planning for my retirement or wish I had started earlier?” Each day we delay planning, is one day closer to retirement.
