by Lyndon W

Created on: August 12, 2010

Retirement is constantly on the minds of working population, and with the abundance of information available about retirement; one would have thought that planning would be a piece of cake. However, common blunders and mistakes continued to be made by people.  Instead of facing it ourselves and learning it the hard way, the more prudent way is to learn from the past errors of others.

With this in mind, we aim to look at some common mistakes in retirement:-

•  Delaying retirement planning and execution. Say for someone in his twenties - Retiring 40 years later seems like a goal so far away. However, a quick calculation will allow the common folks to realize that the amount required for retirement is indeed quite a large figure, and it takes time and constant effort to build up this nest egg. Listen to this analogy: You are driving, and currently behind time for a meeting. You might have to drive at 140km/hr instead of 90km/hr now to reach in time. It may be possible, but is both risky and dangerous. The same applies to retirement planning. The gist is to start early since the earlier you start, the more time you have to reach your goal, and at a more realistic pace as well.

•  Setting an unrealistic retirement age. Retiring early is an exciting thought, yet it may not be realistic or even suitable for everyone. The younger one retires, the greater amount of wealth is needed to last a lifetime. Compiled with the fact that no one really knows how far a ripe old age will you live to, a strong game plan has to be set in place to sustain you for life after retirement. A good example would be for a friend who retired at age 42. What made him different was that he still had rentals coming in from 3 properties that he has. Many others however realise that they do not have sufficient funds like 10 years after retirement, and have to return to the workforce. By this time, they would have fallen out of pace with the working environment, and even harder to draw a pay close to their last drawn pay.

•  Touching the Retirement nest egg. Nest eggs should be kept untouched until the time comes for their fulfilled purpose. Yet, more than a handful of people make the mistake of treating their retirement plan just like a regular savings account. More than often, money that is taken out does not get replenished. Even when replaced, there exists the lost opportunity of the replaced amount from growing and compounding just like the rest of the

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