Studies have reveled that retirement planning is the most neglected savings in the Indian community and the youths. They just don’t think of what is going to be 20 – 30 years down the line. All that they are concerned with is planning for the short term. Plans for their child’s education, plan for emi to be paid for a new luxury car, a new apartment, for unforeseen medical or otherwise expenses, so on and so forth, is all that they seem to have in their minds. When spoken to then a very normal reply that is received is “why should I be thinking of things that are still 20 – 30 years away from now. I surely do have lots of time to plan for them”.
But the fact of life is that, a normal professional starts his career at the age of 25. In certain cases it happens even earlier than that. There after he gets extremely busy with his life and does not get to think of much other than the short term future. The long term future always stays neglected as such. Then after having spent an extremely hectic 25 to 30 years in job or profession then he desires for an early retirement. But with the advancement and the progress of the medical science, the life expectation of an average person is 70 – 75 years. This would mean that the person not only needs to earn for the 25 – 30 years that he spends working but also needs to have some thing over and above that, which would be good enough that suffices his financial needs post retirement which is expected to for another 25 – 30 years.
Thus what I would say is paying a small amount towards your PF which would save some of your tax liability is only a baby step. You need to be more conscious about your future. With the expansion of the nuclear families, it’s becoming extremely difficult for people to support them in their old ages. Thus that would mean any thing that you need would cost you. If the fore said has caused the dawn of wisdom upon you then the next expected question from you should be, what should be the right age from which one should start saving for retirement? And the answer to that I would say that it should start right from the time one starts earning.
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