An upheaval on all levels. Retirement, whether expected or feared, has an impact on all aspects of your daily life: social ties, physical or intellectual activity, but above all your standard of living. In France, the amount of the retirement pension paid by the general scheme depends on the duration of insurance and the average annual income of the employee during his 25 most advantageous years. The amount can therefore vary from simple to double from one person to another but, one thing is certain, it is always less important than what you receive as an asset.
Anyone who is about to retire knows this well, but the gap – from 25% to 50% – is sometimes brutal. It then becomes difficult, sometimes, to put aside what you saved in the past, to please your loved ones as you did until now or even to treat yourself to one or two restaurants in the month. Fortunately, it is possible to compensate for a drop in income with a few simple actions or by anticipating a little.
The first thing to do is to put aside when you are still active and do it seriously. Several savings solutions are available to you, such as the popular retirement savings plan or the retirement savings plan, each with its advantages and disadvantages. Life insurance, which Planet often tells you about, is also a solution, but it all depends on your profile, your income and what you want once your activity is over.
A few years before retiring, Jacqueline changed her lifestyle and decided not to buy a new car anymore, when she changed hers. She knew she would drive less and therefore opted for leasing, with a three-year contract: “I have a number of kilometers defined in my contract and the garage takes care of everything, from maintenance to technical control. “. The young retiree does not care that she does not own the car and is happy to be able to change after three years. “I can leave with the same model, new, but I can also change range, for a smaller car if I think that will be enough for me in the future”, she explains.
Of course, the retiree pays rent every month to be able to drive her car, but before starting, she calculated that she was a winner, compared to the purchase of a vehicle. “If in three years from now I can no longer drive, I would not have bought a car for 15,000 or 20,000 euros for nothing,” she concludes with Planet. She was also able to count on money set aside after an inheritance… And well placed.
Eight years before retiring, Jacqueline lost her father and, as an only child, inherited all of his property, including half of an apartment in Paris. Sold, this property brings her a tidy sum, which she then invests in a smaller apartment in the Paris region. “An investment for the future, because I imagined myself getting closer to Paris and no longer having rent to pay,” she explains to Planet. Finally, five years later, she decided to sell it and got a good deal, since the apartment took around 20,000 euros more. She placed this sum in her savings and now uses it to supplement her pension or to please her loved ones.
While it is important to anticipate, it is also essential to change your habits once retirement is over. For this, François began to reduce his expenses two years before the deadline…
François knew full well that his standard of living would drop with retirement, so he anticipated the fall. Two years before saying goodbye to the active life, he began to reduce some of his futile expenses and put aside what he had not spent, between 200 and 300 euros per month. Gradually, he also turned to other products at the supermarket, knowing that he could no longer buy only brands once he retired.
Why not have taken advantage of his salary longer to spend it? “The drop in income worried me, but I was also afraid of not being able to assume the first months, of being in the red each time”, he confides to Planet: “By reducing my expenses a little every month before retirement, I slowly got used to this new life”. This is the main advice he gives to his friends who will soon be retired.
