In the previous posts in the retirement series, we saw the following:
1. Why plan for Retirement? and
2. How much money will I need?
3. Where will the money come from?
The next logiccal step in the sequence would be to actually build the retirement corpus. In India, there are a myriad of investment options that are available. The most common ones are:
1. Bank Fixed Deposits
2. Stock Market Investments (Shares & Mutual Funds)
3. National Savings Certificate
4. Public Provident Fund
5. Unit Linked Insurance Plans
6. Gold
7. etc
As part of building your corpus, you are essentially building a portfolio of investments that you can use to fund your retirement. I have written multiple articles that can help you with that. They are:
1. Saving Taxes through Investments
2. What is an Investment Portfolio
3. A Conservative Portfolio
4. An Aggressive Portfolio
5. A Balanced Portfolio
6. Unit Linked Insurance Plans – De-Mystified
7. Life Stage based Portfolio
I would personally recommend that you read the last one on Life Stage based portfolio that advises on how you must plan your investments as you move on from one stage of your life to another. The stages considered are:
1. Single - Young and energetic
2. Just Married - Settling down with a new family
3. Expanding your family - Becoming a parent
4. Matured Individual - Children are grown up
5. Nearing Retirement - Old and wise
It is a good idea to begin investments early, and choose the Aggressive portfolio when you are young and move over to a balanced portfolio post marriage and when you are nearing retirement, switch over to a conservative portfolio.
