When you retire, you don’t have to live an extremely frugal life. If you plan your retirement well, you can still enjoy a comfortable lifestyle. However, there are certain things you should do so that you’re not forced to live frugally.
Ensuring you have plenty of money is one of them, but you should also think about reducing your retirement expenses. The less you have to spend on necessities, the more you can spend on the things you enjoy. As you plan your retirement, think of how you can cut your costs, so you have more disposable income.
Aim to Be Debt-free
Struggling with debt isn’t something you want to be doing when you retire. Even a healthy level of debt could be an inconvenience. If you retire early, you could be more likely to still be paying off your mortgage or other debts. Aiming to be free of all debts by the time you retire will mean you don’t have the money you owe draining your resources. When it comes to loans and credit cards, debtconsolidation.loans or something similar could be a good choice. Consolidating your debts makes them easier to manage. You can concentrate on one payment instead of several. If you want to be debt-free, you should create a plan you can follow to pay off your debts.
Photo Credit: Pixaby
Downsizing: Yes or No?
Downsizing is often recommended for retirement. When people retire, they often have a home big enough for their whole family, but the family has long since moved out. If your home is already empty of kids, you might consider downsizing before you retire so that you’re able to reduce your living costs. Downsizing helps you to bolster your savings too. Some people might be wary of downsizing, though. They like the home they have and will miss it if they sell it. Perhaps you might make use of the extra space you have instead. You could rent it out or use it to run a business.
Take a New Approach to Transportation
When you retire, being able to get around is still important. In fact, later on, isolation is a risk, so transportation becomes even more important. However, you can still change the ways that you get around and reduce your transportation costs while still meeting all of your transportation needs. For example, if you no longer have two people going to two different jobs, you probably don’t need two cars anymore. You might feel more comfortable downsizing your car as you did with your house, so you have something more efficient. Find the most efficient vehicles at consumerreports.org.
Stay Healthy for Lower Medical Costs
You can’t have complete control of your health as you get older. However, there are some things you can do to avoid various health problems. Staying healthy can help you to reduce medical and insurance costs so that you have more money to spend on other things. As you plan your early retirement, include a healthy lifestyle now and in the future in your plans.
In Closing
Reducing your costs for retirement doesn’t have to mean extremely frugal living. You can be comfortable and still spend less than before.
Very true Tommy. I think you need to take a step back, analyze and question what you are spending your money on whether you are looking to retire or not. Its easy to get on auto-pilot with your lifestyle and spending habits which likely is costing you more every year than you really need to spend. I’ve done it with my cell phone bill and also cancelled cable. Start reviewing all your spending and expenses, and with some effort you can really lower your costs without sacrificing much. A little discipline and self-control can go a long way and is probably better for you in the long run.
Thanks for the comment Arrgo. You are right on. Phone and cable are perfect simple examples of how we get into habits of convenience and spend money unnecessarily. Sometimes we see only the big things but all of the little ones stack up unnoticed. Its about thinking about where our money goes and whether it adds any real value to our lives.
Tommy
Good post. Staying healthy and active is the key for me. I’m frugal by nature and enjoy simple activities -mostly walking and playing pickleball (very little equipment needed-cheaper to play than sports like golf).
Thanks for the comment Matt. Taking up low costs activities and sports like pickleball is certainly easy on the budget, great for our health, and allows us to remain the social creatures we truly are.
Tommy