You may have built an adequate retirement corpus, yet you may come across things in your life for which you may not have planned financially. So, instead of skipping spending money on such things, you can manage your finances smartly without disturbing your primary retirement goals. Some important hacks can help you spend more without compromising your goals.
Prioritise Your Financial Goals
Make a list of your retirement goals and list them based on their priority from top to bottom. On the top, keep the high-priority goals and on the bottom, keep the least important ones. It will help you figure out which goals can be delayed or cancelled so that you can get a little extra money and time so that you can spend the money on objectives identified after your retirement.
Tighten Your Budget
Even if you have sufficient corpus for your retirement, try to keep your budget tightened and avoid unnecessary expenses. It will allow you to create a financial cushion that can be used to spend a little extra money whenever you come across an unidentified financial commitment during your retirement period.
Use Reward Points, Discounts And Offers Available On Your Spending Tools
Your spending tools can prove to be your good friends in your retirement. They can help you save money when you spend through them, you can earn reward points and you can also get handsome discounts when use them. For example, you can use credit cards to get an interest-free credit period of up to around 50 days when you use them to spend money on shopping, paying bills, etc. On credit card spending you also earn attractive reward points that can be used later on shopping, buying movie tickets, booking flight tickets or hotel rooms, etc.
Try To Get An Extra Source Of Income
Instead of taking a complete retirement, try to continue working on and off, or part-time. It will help you get extra financial cushion over and above your planned retirement corpus. You can use the extra income to spend on anything, even on something which is not on your planning list.
If the spending need is bigger and you don’t want to disturb your primary goals, then you would require a greater financial effort to keep things in your control. Depending on your financial need, you may explore options such as downsizing your home and selling the existing one to get a big amount. You may sell some of your old assets or belongings which you don’t use anymore.
Try to avoid taking a loan in your retirement unless you have a serious financial emergency and you don’t have any other option in hand.
The author is an independent financial journalist.