Why is it important to save for retirement?

Not so many people save for their own retirement. Usually people save for the next 6 months or even for the year then it stops. In other words, a lot save for short term and not for the long term.

In the Philippines, when you are 60 years old and not able to work, money would stop flowing in most cases. Who would take care of you? Your children financially. Trust me, when I was not financially educated this was my plan, that to spend money as much as I can, buy this and that and when I get old, I’ll let my children support me.

I realized that this was not the right thing, why? My future children will have their own life, own family, own plans and children. Envisioning this in the future, I would love to see my children enjoy their life to the fullest, I would not like them to get worried about me specially financially, I would not like to ruin any budget they would prepare.

There was this joke I heard that normally, when you have grandparents they would be shared to your family members, maybe, and there are 2 type on how to share:

1. If grandma and grandpa have no retirement money, the family members would offer grandma and grandpa to another relative. “Hey sister, mama said she misses you, don’t you miss mama? Wanna take her?”.

Unfortunately, this kind of situation actually happens.

2. If grandma and grandpa are rich and has so much retirement money, relatives would call and offer their homes! “Hey sister, I miss mama and papa, do they miss me? I have a bedroom with 1 big bed, maybe they can have a vacation here?”.

And truly, this actually happens too!

I am not saying that we should save for retirement so that situation # 2 will happen to us. My point is that we should be aware that we are not getting any younger each day, we grow older each day. In life, we are forced to grow old and retire.

My friend told me a story once that he knows of a retiree who has a pension with SSS, I was told that every month, this retiree would only receive 2000 Pesos! Oh my, this is not enough.

As Financial Planners, we also hold seminars (Wealth Academy) to people who wants to start investing and saving, one time, there was this 60 year old guy listening to our seminar. After the talk, he cried, the speaker approached him and asked why he was crying. “If only I knew this when I was still young.” he said.

Right now, while we still have the energy to work, energy to earn money, let’s work hard and save wisely. Earn as much as you can and save as much as you can while you still can! We are not meant to last forever, every minute, every hour, every day counts.

Let's prepare for our future together!

Happy saving!

Cheers!

All credit goes to *StarSweep for the Old Couple picture on http://browse.deviantart.com/art/Old-Couple-254084689