Retirement Planning For 30-Somethings: Enhance Your Budget

At this stage, you should already have a budget in place. If you don't, one should be designed to help ensure efficient management of your income and expenses. If you do have a budget in place, consider enhancing it to accommodate your changing financial profile. The following are some recommendations:

• Revise or develop your balance sheet so as to clearly identify your assets, debts and other liabilities, and your net worth. This will also help you to determine how much you have saved for retirement, whether your emergency fund is sufficient and if you are overextended in debt.
• Meet with your interested parties and individuals who contribute to the decision-making processes that affect your finances, and discuss your financial goals and objectives. These interested parties include your spouse, individuals who might help to cover expenses, and your financial advisor.
• Determine when and how your revised budget will be implemented. Creating a budget is only helpful if it is implemented.

It may be necessary to revisit and reevaluate your new budget, so as to determine the impact of any changes that were made. If the new budget is not working effectively, improvements can be made. A revision of your budget can also help to identity opportunities for adding more to your retirement nest egg, and an opportunity to increase the efficiency with which you allocate and spend your disposable income.