With every paycheck, you can almost hear the clock ticking as you approach retirement. Once you round age 50 you might start to panic a bit wondering if you have enough saved or invested. Common retirement planning concerns include covering your healthcare expenses, supplementing your Social Security benefits and potentially outliving your savings.
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Along with knowing how much to save, you must carefully pick and allocate investments for more financial security. Once you reach full retirement age, you’ll hopefully have multiple savings accounts, such as individual retirement accounts (IRAs), Roth IRAs or 401(k) plans. Robert Kiyosaki, author of the bestseller “Rich Dad Poor Dad,” offers money advice on everything from investments to entrepreneurship. Here are four tips he’s shared for a sound retirement plan.
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Don’t Lose With Cash
You may feel tempted to keep a lot of cash on hand to protect yourself against market downturns or lower-than-expected retirement benefits. However, this could be a bad financial move if you are seeking sustainable retirement income as part of your plan.
Concerned about the dollar’s viability, Kiyosaki cautioned about how inflation can impact your savings account balances. He said, “Rather than save cash, keep your liquidity in assets that can be quickly liquefied and that hedge against inflation, not lose value with it. That can be gold, silver, oil, etc.”
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Diversify the Real Way
When you diversify your retirement portfolio, you might focus on types of traditional investments, such as mutual funds, stocks and bonds. While this can balance out some risk, you can also look into alternative investments to protect your retirement savings.
“True diversification involves investing in as many of the five asset classes as possible: paper, real estate, commodities, business, and cryptocurrency,” said Kiyosaki in another related article. Be sure to do your due diligence, however, since these investment options all have varying returns, risks, potential fees and tax implications.
Invest To Generate Cash
When considering health issues and medical expenses that can arise for seniors, you might consider getting a long-term care insurance policy to protect yourself. Skyrocketing healthcare costs can all but cripple your fixed income or the the little you receive of Social Security. However, this coverage can come with unaffordable premiums and limitations — and there’s no guarantee you’ll ever use it.
Instead, Kiyosaki advised, “Rather than hand your money over to an insurance company or stock it away at a zero return for an old-age annuity, begin now to invest in assets that will provide the cash flow you need to cover your expenses as you grow older.”
An example of this would be receiving ongoing rental payments from an investment property.
Minimize Your Taxes
Taxes on investment income will only cut into your overall return, so you should aim to reduce or avoid them. Kiyosaki suggested using pre-tax dollars to buy investments and taking time to learn about tax advantages and strategies.
Another move is to hold your investments for over a year so you’ll pay the long-term capital gains rate, which will likely be lower than your regular tax rate. You should also explore tax-exempt investment options, including municipal bonds and health savings accounts.
Caitlyn Moorhead contributed to the reporting for this article.
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This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: 4 Retirement Planning Tips Robert Kiyosaki Swears By