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At what age should you start retirement planning?

Planning for retirement is important, it isn't the sort of thing that you can just let happen. A lot of people recommend that you should start planning for retirement as early as you can. In most cases this is silly advice, you won't be able to make any real plans until you are much closer to retirement age.

Most people would tell you that you should start planning for retirement as early as possible. This is not really what they mean however. When they say planning for retirement they mean saving for retirement, they are not really the same thing. It is definitely a good idea to start saving for your retirement as soon as you can but you don't actually need to start making retirement plans until you are older. After all it would be silly to start planning your retirement while you are still in high school. It is a good idea to put some of the money from your part time job towards retirement but you probably shouldn't be planning it.

The ideal time to start making retirement plans is going to be when you are in about you mid thirties. Even at this point you aren't going to want to make detailed plans; there will still be many changes in your life. However you will want to start thinking about the age at which you want to retire and how much money you will need to do that. You should also be looking at your savings so that you can determine where you stand and how realistic your goals are.

The real planning for retirement should start when you get into your mid forties. At this point you will have a better understanding of where you are financially and how realistic your goals are. It is also at this point that you are going to want to address questions about where you want to live when you retire, if you want to travel or stay in one place. Even at this stage most of your planning will be about goals more than definite plans. However you should have a good idea of how much money you will have available to retire with.

It is when you get into your fifties that you are going to want to start doing the really serious planning for retirement. This is where you are going to want to look at your investments and start moving them into more stable and safer areas, preserving capital will start to become more important than growth. You will also want to start looking at what your retirement benefits are and when you become eligible for them. You will also want to address at what age you should start taking your benefits and how it affects your plans. You will also need to address questions like health care.