Photo by Tobi
An extensive amount of importance is laid upon saving for retirement, and so it should be. Your wealth will determine the type of lifestyle you are able to afford once you retire. However, there are other investments we should consider alongside money to secure a happy and healthy duration in the next chapter of our life. By reading the below, you can gain an insight into a few of the areas worthy of including in your investment portfolio for creating a prosperous future.
Invest Time To Visualize
Talking about the money side of retirement too much and often can draw away from the purpose of what all this money will mean when you retire or stop your career. Which is why it’s important to consider the following; what does retirement mean to you? And why is it important? Perhaps you daydream about doing nothing work-related all day, or perhaps you want to take up a part-time role as a landscaper and gardening enthusiast. Maybe you want to travel and see the world such as Hong Kong, Australia, and Paris. Or you may visualize selling your family home and moving into a trailer by the seaside, living minimally and waking up to the sunrise from across the ocean.
Your dreams of retirement are incredibly personal and vital in providing you with the inspiration and passion for aiming high when saving for the day you wish to end the official working chapter of your life. Unless of course, you don’t want to stop working and envision working by choice rather than due to employment being a necessity. Visualizing your future is powerful in propelling you to work towards your goals in life. If you’re struggling to think about what your retirement could entail, you can source inspiration from retirees or create a brainstorm to get some ideas flowing on paper.
“Visualize what you want to do before you do it. Visualization is so powerful that when you know what you want, you will get it.” – Audrey Flack
Invest In Your Body And Mind
A lot of weight is heavily laid upon the crucial aspect of saving to support yourself years from now. An extent of importance should be stretched to cover keeping your mind and body happy and healthy, so that you may experience the fruits of your labor to the fullest once your retirement begins. Some of us tend to only look after ourselves wholly when something goes wrong, other than this we take ourselves for granted that we’ll function as we do now infinitely. This assumption is wildly inaccurate as looking after your body takes as much dedication and commitment as investing your money. Which is why you should give as much to your body and mind as you do to your bank account by; exercising, wearing sunscreen and glasses, drinking lots of water, eating your greens, visiting nature, reading, meditating and being positive, because being kind to yourself now will pay off when you decide to retire.
“Your body is the biggest investment you will ever have in your life. Don’t abuse it! – Michael Kenneth
Invest Time In Being Kind
It goes without saying investing time in being generous and kind to your loved ones and to those outside of your inner circle is an essential act of spending energy in becoming a better person. Investing and saving to build a pool of wealth is crucial, however, not having anyone to share it with, whether a partner, friends, children, or grandchildren may be a sad prospect. Building strong, meaningful, lasting connections with people takes time, dedication and hard work.
Be generous and kind with your time, energy, and money and give to those less fortunate than you. Investing time in practicing compassion and generosity will have a ripple effect among those closest to you, encouraging them to be kind also. The act of being a good person and building strong relationships will ensure you set your life up for retirement with people you love and wish to share it with.
“There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up.” – John Holmes
Invest Your Money
Last but not least, investing money is essential to complete your holistic investment portfolio alongside maintaining your health and happiness. The key to smart investing is to diversify your assets. By spreading your earnings among different investment streams, you are reducing the likelihood of risking losing your hard-earned cash. The central premise of investment is to plunge money time and effort into something you hope in either a short or a long period of time will yield a return. Refrain from delaying the beginning of your investment portfolio and start searching for the opportunities that fit your budget and circumstances. Below are a few suggestions to propel your investment thinking forward.
Real Estate
Should you have enough income and savings to purchase a separate abode from the one you’re living in this could be a good investment for your future. This is because when locking up your money in houses, you have a range of options to seek a return over a short and extended period of time.
For instance, you could choose to purchase a small property to begin with, flip it (renovate it if it’s run down) and sell it. Alternatively, you may wish to buy and then rent out the property. You could set the rent to pay for the mortgage and provide you with money left over to put into your savings for retirement. In the future, once you decide to retire and the properties mortgage is eventually paid off, you will have a regular investment income on a monthly basis from your tenants.
Alternatively, you could receive a valuation and sell the property and keep the money in the bank to pay for your lifestyle during your retirement years.
With a few options to play with when investing in real estate, if you can afford to consider buying houses you should. However, to avoid the pitfalls of buying property make an effort to research and gain knowledge on the property market.
Cryptocurrency
Picture by Moose Photos
The emergence of decentralized currency (neither regulated or controlled by the government) in 2009, demonstrated the convenience, speed and value virtual currency beholds and comparison to the standard currency. Cryptocurrency possesses many benefits to its users as it can directly be stored on your PC and for those who want to buy bitcoin online, it can be easily purchased online. Further to this, there is an end to end encryption for security reasons to make all cryptocurrency purchases private.
With the popularity of Bitcoin, in particular, more people are investing money in the cryptocurrency market. The fuss that accompanies cryptocurrency may appear questionable as it’s not as established as other investments such as real estate. However, the same can be said for those choosing to invest in start-up businesses where you have no real idea whether it will reap a return in the future. Cryptocurrency is deemed high-risk, which in turn means the potential for a high reward. For the purposes of expanding your investments, cryptocurrency could be a potential contender, as long as you understand that the potential for loss is also high.
“Cryptocurrency ATMs are being installed around the world at a rate of nearly 9 per day.”
― Mohsin Jameel
Startup Companies
As part of your investment portfolio, why not consider investing time and research in companies that could potentially flourish in the future. Search for companies with innovative ideas, a mission, strategy, and dedication to growing. Much like cryptocurrency you are not guaranteed an absolute return, however, keeping all of your money in savings accounts with pitiful interest rates won’t do much to fund your early retirement budget either.
Think of international successful companies now such as McDonalds and Apple. They initially started in a single food stand and in a garage, and now possess global recognition and riches. By diversifying your portfolio to invest in businesses, you are investing in people to become something and create something much more significant with the help of your money. To scour the available opportunities look no further than the internet, with sites such as seedrs.com and crowdcube.com advertising companies vouching for investments such as yours to grow.
“For former entrepreneurs and for those who never had the chance to start a company of their own, supporting a startup can prove to be the next best thing.” – Ryan Feit Inc.
Collectibles
Beyond virtual investments, you may prefer the idea to attain something tangible. For those who prefer the idea of purchasing assets, they can see, touch and keep until they’re ready to sell that will increase in value over time. You could consider collecting pieces such as; art, figurines, comics, old technology, and jewelry. All of which you can store and sell once they have peaked in value and you are ready to retire. It does take a keen eye to pick items that will be of value above what you are paying for them later on as the collectible market can be fickle.
The above guide creates a holistic approach for investing in health, wealth and happiness, by taking care of your body and mind, to ensure you are fit, well and able during retirement. To visualize your future as a retiree, to have something to strive towards and make it an event in your life to become passionate and excited about. Also to be kind to others and build loving connections, filled with generosity and compassion to ensure you take the best people with you through to your next stage of life. And of course to diversify your financial investments into different avenues to improve the chances of gaining a return to make your early retirement possible.
Disclaimer- Leisure Freak is in no way advising readers to invest in cryptocurrencies. Invest at your own risk. Crypto is a high risk investment scheme. This article is for information purposes only.