5 Ways to Track Your Finances Post-Retirement

Evaluate your financial situation and identify the income you’ll need to fund your lifestyle after retirement. There are several income sources available post-retirement, including pensions, alternative careers, freelancing or consulting income, savings, income from investment returns, etc. It’s also important to calculate the after-tax benefits you expect from each of these sources. 

Your spending needs may be higher than they were before retirement. This is also because there may be new health issues or other emergency expenses that crop up. It’s important to observe your situation and identify your spending needs exactly. Categorising them into long-term and short-term spends may make it easier to plan your retirement budget accordingly. 

Try to maintain an income and expenditure sheet. You can then flag avoidable expenses and plan your post-retirement life better to minimise them. This might preclude expensive habits like impulse shopping. By controlling your expenses, you can ensure you have enough funds to manage your household or handle emergency expenses. 

No one wants their savings to be drained by taxes, so planning your tax components efficiently is vital. You can opt for tax-saving schemes but try to avoid ones that offer low returns and have long lock-in periods. 

It’s always a good idea to conduct regular reviews of your assets and investment portfolio. For example, calculating your portfolio withdrawal rate may help determine whether you’ll have enough funds to meet your post-retirement expenses. In case you don’t have enough, you can explore new personal finance investment options. This is also a good time to review your investment allocation, assessing whether you have the right balance of debt and equity fund investments and whether your returns are as expected.