How To Prepare For Your Golden Years

Having now well and truly arrived at my Golden Years I have all too late realised what I should have done, or done more of, in my younger highly productive years. Here are some of the things I did exceptionally well, not well enough, or not at all.

Higher Education

One of the things I missed out on during my formative years was a decent education, due to family circumstances and social norms. After leaving school at the age of fifteen I spent the following fifteen years bouncing from one dead-end job after another. Finally, at the age of thirty, I decided to do something about it.

I went to study for a degree as a mature student, and I am so glad I did as it completely transformed my life. After my graduation, I went from earning £150 a week to £150 an hour! And that was just for starters. Ten years later I went back to University to take a second degree. That investment in my own education paid off in buckets for the following forty years, enjoying one highly-paid job after another. That in turn enabled me to invest in property and, to a much lesser extent, a pension.

Investment

Property is the best investment you will ever make. Why? As Bob Hope once said, “Buy land, because they don’t make it any more.” With a scarcity of good land/property and a growing population, it’s not difficult to see why it goes up in value in leaps and bounds. My first house cost me £7,500. Two house moves and not too many years later, I was living in a house worth £250,000!

Private Pension

One other thing I invested in, but not enough, was a private pension with a company called Clerical and Medical. I only managed to keep up the payments for two years before my whole life fell apart and it was impossible to continue with the plan. The money invested was locked into the plan and I could do nothing about it for the next thirty years. In that time a total investment of just £500 turned into a very handy windfall of £7,500! That covered the cost of getting married to my present wife. However, imagine if I had been to invest ten times that original amount over time.

Private Health Care Plan

If there is one thing you are going to need in your Golden years it is good health care, and that my friends costs a lot of money. Forget the state pension, these days that does not even cover the cost of living never mind the cost of dying.

In my case, I have found myself in a situation where if it wasn’t for my lovely wife I most likely would have been dead. Beset by a host of debilitating health conditions, I am only alive because my lovely wife has a private healthcare plan that also covers me as her spouse. So I guess if you cannot make financial provision for your future healthcare costs, you better marry well instead.

Passive Income

This is one you may already be seeking to develop. The great thing about this is that as long as you have your mental acuity intact and unimpeded by dementia, then you can easily sit at your keyboard and earn a passive income simply by writing. Apart from buying a computer, all you need to invest is time and that is something you will have plenty of as you enter your seventh decade.

Four Great Takeaways

Invest in yourself.
Invest in property.
Invest in a pension plan.
Invest in a personal healthcare plan.