Long-Term Financial Planning In Uncertain Times
When you read the news headlines, even if you can no longer stand to read entire articles about current events, it is easy to get the impression that it is futile to make long-term plans. Planning for retirement and building an estate plan implies an ability to be reasonably certain about the way that some things will be several decades in the future. This is a daunting prospect for many Americans born in the 1980s. Your parents’ advice about financial planning felt woefully out of date even before the pandemic, and it is even worse now. Whether or not you have children, it is certain that your estate will eventually have to go through probate, so you should write a will, if only to save the people you care about the most from the heartbreaking task of having to guess what you would have wanted them to do with your property and where to bury your body or store or scatter your ashes. There are some important financial moves you can make now to put you in a better financial position, even as, for the foreseeable future, you can only concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. To find out more about the financial needs of your future and how present you can provide for them, contact a Tampa estate planning attorney.
Saving for a Rainy Whatever
Millennials would be reasonable to think that retirement accounts are for rich people, and so are salaried jobs. Even if you are knee deep in the gig economy swamp, it is still important to save some of your income for later. You can call it an emergency fund, and in fact you may need to withdraw money from it occasionally when the gigs ebb. If you keep contributing to it, though, it will become a future fund.
Just as many millennials despair of ever being able to own a house, they also despair of ever being able to retire. As you contribute to your future fund, do not worry about saving X amount of money by a certain date; just try to get the account balance up to the next hundred or next thousand dollars. You can always decide later when you have enough saved, and there is no rule saying that you have to spend it on anything wasteful and distracting, like real estate.
If you want to withdraw some money for an avocado toast brunch or something similar, go ahead. You can easily make up for a small splurge with a few good gigs. Avoid risky investment opportunities, though, and business opportunities that sound too good to be true.
Contact David Toback With Questions About Baby Steps Toward Estate Planning
The sooner you start saving, even on a modest income, the greater the chances that you will eventually be able to retire. A Central Florida estate planning lawyer can help you make the plans you can make now with the resources you currently have. Contact David Toback in Tampa, Florida to set up a consultation.
Source:
kiplinger.com/personal-finance/604750/millennials-want-a-different-kind-of-retirement
