Nearing Retirement? Take These Steps For A Debt-Free, Asset-Rich Retired Years

The reverse countdown may hit you even before you realise it. Yes, we are here talking about the retirement years which for someone may be just around the corner.

- Vishwajeet Parashar

The reverse countdown may hit you even before you realise it. Yes, we are here talking about the retirement years which for someone may be just around the corner. Broadly speaking, your retirement countdown should typically start 10 years before retirement.

What you do in this decade will determine whether you can drive home the advantage of starting to save early or doing it diligently. A critical financial manouver during this period is securing the gains made by you in higher risk growth investments such as equity mutual funds, stocks and growth variants of Unit Linked Insurance Plans (ULIPS).

You need to park these gains in safer haven investments and reinvest them gradually so that your monthly pay cheque is substituted by regular retirement income. In the few years away from retirement, make sure that you move the corpus into less volatile assets such as debt products like fixed deposits or debt mutual funds so that no unexpected change in the market conditions can drastically deplete your retirement corpus.

Here is a brief guide on the major steps you should be taking in the crucial decade before retirement.