Saving for your retirement should begin the first day you start working, as most financial advisers will tell you. But for those in their forties who have delayed investing, there is still enough time to save if they follow a more aggressive, disciplined approach, says Allan Gray’s Jeanette Marais.
Most investors are aware that saving in their early twenties is the best way to build up sufficient capital for their retirement. “However, the reality is that many people don’t do this or they start, but then cash in their savings when they change jobs,” says Jeanette Marais, director of distribution and client service at Allan Gray.
Below are Marais’s 5 practical tips for those who have left saving for retirement for later in life.
Tip 1: Start immediately
For those investors who begin saving later in life, say in their late thirties or early forties, there is still hope. The sooner you start saving, the more time you will have to save, and the longer you will have to benefit from the power of compound interest, which is interest upon interest. Each month that you put off saving in favour of spending either increases the amount you will have to save, or pushes out the date at which you will be able to retire.
Starting to save for retirement is like planting a tree…The best time was yesterday, the second best time is today!
