It's never too late!

In great majority of cases, people do not bother to plan for their retirement years until their late forties. The exuberance of youth, over-involvement in the affairs of their own little world (spouse and children) preclude any possibility of a serious thought being given to something that is going to happen decades hence. But let there be no regret or ego bashing
self-castigation.
It is never too late to do a good turn to yourself. If not already done, you can plan your retirement from to day itself. Late beginning has its own blessing in as much as you can do with only 90 degree planning i.e. highly focused approach to ensure a great and gala future since the rest of financial obligations are expected to have been already taken care of by this time.
Planning for the post superannuation days, however, is not as simple as it is often thought or made out to be. People often underestimate their financial requirements during the period of their eternal lay over. Increase in longevity and changed life style have made a big difference to the amount of money one would require during his unending sabbatical. While drawing up an estimate about the total financial requirements during the euphemistically called the golden years of one's life it is better to err on the wrong side. As many have realized the margin of error, however, turned out to be much
bigger in real life.
Let us now go over the main heads of expenditure which will have to be taken care of. Most of the financial advisers tend to overlook some of the most important items/requirements thereby exposing their clients to avoidable embarrassment

Defining Goals
Properly defined financial goals are extremely essential. Defining of goals by putting them on paper in precise and simple language serves two objective. In the first place, it makes you to give a commitment to yourself to perform a certain act which involves savings and investment on
regular basis and secondly the clarity does not leave room for ambiguity as to the interpretation of the commitment.
We shall now list below the main heads of expenditure including those which people generally do not take into account or tend to overlook as being of little consequence. This is a grave omission and it has made many an
individual face humiliating family and social situations.

The following expenses would need to be taken care of even when has retired from work life.
1. Food and Clothing. You are expecterd to maintain your own kitchen- the birds have flown into their own nest. Grand parent would no longer be the members of the family of their children. They would be accepted and viewed as guest on a very short visit.

2. Utilities, Electricity, Water and Phone -Educated and IT savvy retirees cannot imagine life without internet and mobile- Money outgo under this head is going to be fairly high - thanks to escalation in the energy prices.

3. House. Maintenance (optional)/Hobbies/ and expenditure of purely personal nature.

4. Charity/Yatras/ Pilgrimage, You did not get time for anything spiritual but this mindset may have to be changed. And of course whether you like or not body is going to demand serious looking after henceforth. Timely redressal of any untoward physical development will have to be a self financed activity. All this is going to cost humongous amount of money for which the provision made always falls short of the actual requirement.

5. Cash Gifts social and community donations. On occasions like marriage, birthdays, anniversaries. Familes may break into smaller units but there is no breakdown of relationships. Unless one chooses to be a monk or a renunciant, one will always be expected to discharge his/her family/social /community obligations which more than often if not always involve significant cash outflow.

6. Money for Purchase of Filial Affection. In old age even affection comes at a price Grand children are not likely to look back at the grand parents and seek their company If you want their attention company and affection you will have to pay for it in the form of gifts and goodies The cost of this affection can be pretty high at times Moreover this is not going to be a one time expenditure.' It is mostly of recurring nature. A suitable provision for expenditure under this head therefore must be made and more than adequate funds provided for the purpose.
Have you worked out the amount of money that you would need to maintain a standard and way of life that you were enjoying on the eve of your laying down the tools?. You should not hesitate to seek or obtain professional guidance in this regard.
After having described the needs and worked out the corpus of money that would be required to meet those needs we must discus and clearly delineate the methods/ , strategies of saving and investment which would lead to realization of our newly defined and so assiduously worked out financial targets.

Implementing the Plan
For those in employment they must begin the exercise by first matching their contribution to the retirement plans, or funds with those of their employers. For the rest of us the road and the route is the same as is being followed by the developed nations in Europe and Americas i.e. owning a part of the business through the equity route as part of our overall portfolio to give it a Midas touch to offset the moth effect of inflation effectively.
First of all purge your mind of subsisting on interest for it is no longer going to suffice. Moreover it is not subsistence but super existence that we are aiming at and this would definitely require far larger sums of money than the passive life style which our seniors maintained and were content with not long ago., You must accept that risk and returns have a very close relationship .i.e. there is close correlation between these two variables.
The corollary is that you must send out your money to work for you and in the process if it get bruised a bit , you must be ready to accept the fact and bear the loss.. The seafarers of the bygone days took enormous risks but were also equally rewarded with undreamt of wealth in terms of trade and annexation of new lands.
It is not necessary for everyone to be an expert in equity investing. Moreover as we grow in year the percentage of our savings which it is considered advisable to put in stocks goes down. With all kind of technical and fundamental analysis available almost for asking capped by the tons of e experience which the mutual funds apply to funds entrusted to their care, rubbing shoulder with equity should not be so difficult or challenging. In fact after a few encounters equity investing will become an exciting game worth the risks involved.

Planning for retirement would essentially involve keeping mind the following:

That the amount of money worked out on the basis of cost of living a decade or two hence must be worked extremely carefully.
All possible heads of expenditure must be considered while working out the future money needs.
That the traditional approach of living on interest and not touching the capital is not going to work.
Reverse mortgages and nibbling at the capital are no more a forbidden course of raising funds to meet unexpected expenses when one is not in working order (not working any more because of physical infirmities).

Business industry and agriculture are the only known sources of wealth creation. And your money will also have to participate into one of these known wealth creation activities. The returns can be manifold as compared to any passive parking of money but not without risk of losing a part or the whole of it. Before you commit your hard earned; money to market related instruments like stock, it desirable that you acquaint yourself with the preliminary knowledge of the way the things work, and the methodologies adopted by the people in the world of finance and business.
What percentage of your savings you can afford to put at risk of losing it must, therefore, by worked out along with the detailed plan of for saving and investment to take care of your financial requirement during your indefinite sabbatical.