by Simon Wright

Created on: July 10, 2009

We often read articles majoring on the importance of investing "for" retirement, but it's equally important to continue to invest after your retirement date.After all, having spent all those years accumulating your retirement pot, you will want to make sure that your money continues to work hard for you. The chances are that you don't want to have to re-enter the workforce, so your accumulated investments need to be capable of providing a comfortable standard of living for you and any dependants.

Sometimes, when people hear the word investment, they automatically assume that we are talking about the ability to generate capital growth. It's important to note, however, that investment can also be about generating a regulr income. For example, when we purchase shares we hope that they will generate dividend payments and any additional capital growth (from the rising value of the shares) may just be a nice bonus.

Usually, when a person retires, their principal concern is to obtain a regular income that will sustain their standard of living. This is achieved partly through the ongoing agreed pension income but, also, through purchasing annuities, getting interest from bonds and savings accounts, and via dividends from shares. An annuity is usually taken out at the point of retirement, funded from a pension lump sum payment. However, opportunities to benefit from competitively-priced bonds or to add to your stock portfolio are likely to continue to crop up.

There is obviously a degree of risk associated with investments, and for people in their sixties or seventies there may be a shorter time window to generate a personal windfall. However, people are living longer than in previous generations and someone who retires aged sixty may still have a good twenty to thirty years of good health to look forward to. This is a perfectly viable timeframe to generate some very tasty returns from investments. There is also the added factor that investments can be passed on to loved ones, thereby meaning that your skill as an investor will continue to benefit your family long after you have departed the scene.

Alongside income generation, further capital growth is also desirable and should be part of a retiree's goals. Most of us will already be familiar with the fact that inflation erodes the value of our money. This is why $1,000 does not have the same purchasing power that it had in your parents' or grandparents' day. The danger with putting all of your accumulated money

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