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Wednesday, May 7, 2008

* What's Your Retirement Vision?

Where there is no vision, the people perish.
-- Proverbs 29:18
Let's look at a couple of definitions from dictionary.com:

vi·sion [vizh-uhn] : the act or power of anticipating that which will or may come to be
plan [plan] : a scheme or method of acting, doing, proceeding, making, etc., developed in advance

A vision is taking the time to think of (anticipate) in detail what the future will bring. You would need to consider future earnings, savings and economic issues such as inflation. Then based on what you foresee in the future, you would formulate an action plan to ensure the best possible outcome given your unique circumstances. You can't have a retirement plan until you have a retirement vision. It would seem to me that there are a lot or retirement plans out there but very few retirement visions.

Many people are putting money into various retirement vehicles, but they haven't taken the time to envision how it is all going to come together and ultimately if it will be enough. Unfortunately, a significant number of people are not even taking advantage of tools at their disposal. It was noted in a March 2006 CNNmoney article "Retirement: Ready or not? Not, apparently" that
only about 60 percent of workers over 40 who are eligible to participate in their 401(k)s do, and the number of workers covered by a defined-benefit pension has steadily declined. Meanwhile, young workers have the lowest 401(k) participation rates of all workers under 65.
A portion of my retirement planning includes dividend investing. One of the beauties of dividend investing is it provides you continuous feedback. As the years and decades go by you can see your earnings steadily grow as you invest your money in dividend stocks. When you hit retirement it is not that drastic change that many people fear. You have spent a lifetime preparing for it.

Time is only your friend, if you enlist him early. Wait too long and he can be formidable adversary.

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