Enjoying a comfortable retirement through living solely off the State Pension is a challenging task. It amounts to just £8,767 per year. That’s around a third of the average UK salary. As such, many retirees may find that their State Pension barely covers day-to-day necessities.
As such, it may be a good idea to start planning for retirement today. Through regular investing in high-quality stocks with growth potential, it may be possible to build a surprisingly large nest egg. This could supplement the State Pension in retirement and lead to increased financial freedom in older age.
Regular investing
With the cost of living making it difficult to build a large pot of cash to invest in the stock market, regular investing is likely to be a realistic path for many people to take when planning for retirement.
Fortunately, the means by which you can invest regularly have become simpler and cheaper in recent years. In fact, many online share-dealing providers offer a regular investing service that costs as little as £1.50 per trade.
Furthermore, opening an account with a share-dealing provider takes a matter of minutes, while the tax advantages of products such as an ISA or SIPP mean that your nest egg may grow at a relatively fast pace.
A long-term focus
While starting to invest regularly in the stock market may not seem to be a good idea at the present time due to an uncertain economic outlook, in the long run it may lead to higher returns.
History shows that investing during less certain periods for the stock market can provide investors with more attractive prices. This may strengthen their risk/reward ratios, which can produce stronger performance over a multi-year timeframe.
Since many people who invest in order to generate a nest egg for retirement have a long-term horizon, they may be in a position to take risks today in order to produce higher returns further down the line. Should their investments experience a disappointing period, they may have sufficient time to recover.
As such, ignoring market noise, and instead investing regularly could be a worthwhile move.
Investing in growth opportunities
While it is always difficult to accurately predict which sectors and industries will offer outperformance in the long run, investors may be able to increase their chances of doing so by identifying long-term global growth trends.
For example, the healthcare industry may experience increasing demand as the world population rises and life expectancy increases. Likewise, consumer goods companies with exposure to emerging markets could enjoy a tailwind, while increasingly health-conscious consumers could produce a growth opportunity in sustainable living.
By investing in a diverse range of stocks in sectors that appear to have bright futures, it may be possible to enhance your retirement savings plans through building a substantial nest egg. This may mean that you are less reliant on the State Pension in older age.
