Should You Planning for Your Retirement? - Ignore These Mistakes

Did you know that from the very first day you receive money, not at your job, but the pocket money you received as a child, you have been an 'investor'?

Think back to the first day you received pocket money.

You most likely spent it on food, toys, games, movies and other entertainment, and travel.

How much of it did you save?

Not much, if you were like most children in school and college.

You invested in instant gratification, as do most youngsters.

From this young age, your activities, your spending patterns, formed a habit. Your investment behaviour started to get set. Your investor psychology began to solidify.

Then you got your first job and started to mingle in the workplace.

At work, you interact with your colleagues, slowly you hear about people making investments in Tax saving mutual funds, or in their PPF. Your HR talks to you about EPF so you know about that too.

You glean investment facts haphazardly from your colleagues and without really verifying the data, make further investment decisions.

For the next few years, your focus is mainly on saving tax and then you start to think about your life goals. You get married, then have children, educate your children, somewhere along the line you buy a home by taking a home loan.

The expenses continue, and your saving, spending, or investing continues as it did earlier. Your investments receive just enough of your attention for you to feel like you're doing something useful about it.

But are you doing enough?

With each well-intentioned step you take along this path, your biggest goal of them all suffers. Your Retirement.

The wealth that you could have built for this crucial goal, does not get built.

What we don't realize is that the success of all our life goals, from buying a car, to our children's educations, to going on a family world tour, to retiring young and retiring rich, depends on our investment behaviour.

Orginally content published on Personalfn