Saving for retirement at 50

South Africans become financially wiser as they get older, says expert.

You can start saving for retirement at 50 if for some reason you left this important part of your financial health so late. While you should start saving for retirement the first month when you start working, you can still make a late life retirement savings plan.

Research by Liberty shows that only 31% of people between the ages of 30 and 35 have established a proper savings plan for retirement. By the ages of 45 to 49 this figure jumps to 63%.

Sheila-ann Robey, a certified financial planner at Liberty, says this shows that South Africans become financially wiser as they get older, but it also indicates that many people are setting up their savings plans later in life.

She uses these two people as an example to explain how life can happen and keep you from saving for retirement:

▸ When Nandi and her husband found themselves in the unexpected, but happy situation of having two children in their late 20s, she decided to give up her teaching job to be a full-time mom.

Now at 50, with the children out of the house, she returned to teaching but wants to save for a meaningful pension to ensure that she and her husband can travel the world when they retire.