Personal Financial Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Personal Financial Management - Essay Example Retirement plan is nothing but a plan which replaces our employment income after we retire. In terms of tax, retirement plan is defined by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) code in US. Dream of leading a secured and comfortable retired life can come true only with proper retirement planning. A plan to transfer ones estate after death is known as estate planning. Estate includes all the personal properties like cash, land, houses, jewelry, investment accounts, etc. Estate planning is done to ensure and fulfill certain objectives like transferring most of the estate to ones beneficiaries, least payment of taxes for the estate, etc. Estate planning is a continuous process and should start immediately when a person has a measurable base of assets (Gitman, Joehnk & Billingsley, 2010, p.18). Estate plans should be in accordance with ones goals and objectives in life. Loved ones can face undue financial burden due to inadequate estate planning. Four Aspects of Retirement Planning Retiremen t planning can be thought of as a framework which includes four main aspects (Prudential Financial, n.d). They are: i. Social Security: Social Security is an insurance program that provides several benefits to individuals like, retirement benefits, disability benefits, etc. ii. Employment based plans: These are retirement plans provided by employers to the employees. It includes defined contribution and benefit pension plans. iii. Personal Savings: The returns on investments made by individuals that can add up to the Social Security Benefits or Employment based plans. It includes options like IRAs, Bank Deposits, Mutual Funds, Annuities, etc. iv. Retirement Choices: For retirement security, lifestyle and financial choices play a significant role. Lifestyle choices include choice of retirement age, place of retirement, etc. Financial choices include allocation of assets in retirement, conversion of assets to income and then protecting that income. The Retirement Planning Process and Personal Retirement Plan The retirement planning process constitutes several steps. These steps are discussed one by one and how it relates with my personal retirement planning is also discussed below. The first step in a retirement planning process includes setting own personal goals and objectives in life. Next these objectives have to be arranged in descending order of priority. Also these objectives should have the time horizon included in it. These objectives can be revised and changed in due course of time. Now this step can be related to my case in the following way: My personal objectives in life arranged in decreasing order of priority with time horizon mentioned along with it are: 1. Maintain the standard of living on retirement at the age of 50 after 20 years. 2. Buying an expensive motor car within 2 years. 3. Buying a home within 5 years. 4. To make a mortgage investment within 10 years. 5. Paying off all the mortgage bonds within 20 years. The second step is about calc ulating and determining the money required for fulfilling each of the objectives. All the household incomes and expenditures are to be calculated and the difference is also to be calculated. Present value of money should be considered while doing the calculations and the annual inflation rate should also be taken into account. This can be applied in my personal retir