10 Common Retirement Mistakes

Retirement is supposed to be a time of relaxation after years of hard work. Yet, many people experience post-retirement problems that make their "easy days' not so stress free. To avoid this kind of predicament, here are 10 common retirement mistakes that you should avoid, so that you can enjoy a happy and peaceful retirement.

1. Not planning early enough It is never too early to start saving up money for your retirement. The quicker you begin putting money aside, the more time it has for interest to accumulate and money to come in. Do not wait until the last minute to start putting money aside. It will be too late by then.

2. Trying to plan it alone A common mistake that many people face is trying to plan out their retirement without aid from a professional. Although it is nice to have confidence in oneself, you should not take a risk with poor planning. Retirment is 20+ years of your life. It is worth the money to hire an advisor for assistance.

3. Poor asset allocation Do not become lazy and put all your retirement funds into one location. If you invest everything into one company or stock and that business goes bankrupt, you are left with nothing. It is wiser to spread your funds into many different accounts. In this way, should one investment begin to turn sour, you have another that will likely be moving up.

4. Not regularly checking your investments By regularly checking your investments, you are making sure that they are healthy. Much like a person that becomes sick and needs to be healed, your investments may sometimes start to struggle. You should verify the status of your money on a regular basis and if it is beginning to ail, make the appropriate changes so it can be restored to perfect health. If not, you could find yourself with a dead account.

5. Not taking advantage of tax-free retirement accounts If somebody came up to you, placed $1000 on the ground, and told you take it, wouldn't you pick it up? Then why would you pass up on tax-free retirement accounts that could save you money? Most of the time, it is because we are either lazy or we just do not know about them. Make time to learn about these accounts and take advantage of them.

6. Using your fund as a fallback Your retirement fund should never be used as a reserve in case you happen to need extra cash. Leave that money in the account where it is supposed to be. Do not treat your retirement account as a back up.

7. Not planning your retirement lifestyle It is absolutely essential that you try to forecast your expenses during retirement. Blind faith will not keep you from running out of money, even though that would be nice. Retirement takes planning. How can you know how much to save if you do not know how much you will spend?

8. Relying on Social Security Looking ahead, a Social Security fund will not be enough to keep you afloat. Take other measures besides social security to ensure financial stability after retirement.

9. Ignoring inflation Just because you stopped earning money does not mean that inflation stops. You will be horribly surprised when you run out of funds, because you did not calculate for inflation. My dad could buy a hamburger for 10 cents when he was a child. I hope he did not think that was going to last.

10. Not factoring in death This mistake does not really hurt you but it does have repercussions for your loved ones. If you should die, will there be enough assets for your spouse or dependents to live on? Make sure that your plan has something to protect your significant other.