For many people, retirement is one of those things that seems so far off in the future that you can afford to not take it too seriously right now. However, sooner than you might like to think about, retirement can creep up on you. And if you haven’t taken steps to prepare yourself for this financially, you might find that the retirement that you’ve envisioned isn’t possible for you anymore.
Luckily, it’s never too late or too early to start preparing for retirement. So if you feel like you’re a bit behind right now, here are three things that you can do if you’re behind in planning for retirement.
What To Do If You Are Behind In Planning For Retirement
Take Advantage Of Catch-Up Contributions
In most cases, it’s going to be best to start saving for retirement early on in your career and allow your savings to grow over decades. But if this wasn’t something you did, you can add larger chunks of money to your accounts as you get closer to retirement.
Once you turn 50 years old, you can start to contribute more to your 401(k) and IRA accounts. This can help you to really ramp up the interest you’re able to accrue and the overall savings that you can have ready for you by the time you retire.
Put Your Home To Work For You
For many people, the reason why they haven’t been preparing for retirement is because they didn’t feel like they were financially able to siphon off funds from their current budget. Luckily, if you’re a homeowner, there are some ways of working with this asset to help fund your retirement.
If you have equity in your home, you can borrow against this to add more to your retirement funds. Additionally, if you have a home that has more space than you need, you can seek to sell the property and make a large chunk of money before moving into a smaller home or into an assisted living community.
Get Ready To Work A Bit Longer
Another option if you really can’t financially retire at the age that you had initially planned is to try to work a few years longer. The more that you’re able to work, the more money that you’ll have to pay for your living expenses as well as add to a retirement account. So if you think that you need some more money to pad your retirement before you stop working, make sure you are in a position where you can continue working if need be.
You Might Like: 5 Easy Ways To Increase Your Retirement Savings
If you feel like retirement has been sneaking up on you and you aren’t as financially prepared as you’d like to be, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you find ways to get things back on track.