One of the most important things you’ll ever have to plan is your retirement and how you’re going to save money to support yourself in your twilight years when you’re no longer in work.

For people who are just starting out on their retirement plans this can be a daunting process that can seem a tad difficult at first. But don’t worry as we’ve come up with a couple of top tips to keep you right to make sure that you can successfully and easily finance your future when you’re old and grey.

First up you need to sit down and assess how much you’re going to need to be comfortable when you retire. You can do this by manually working out how much money you spend on an average week and figuring out if there’s anything you can cut back on.

Or if you want to make your life a whole lot simpler you could try using a few retirement apps. There's quite a lot of them on the market to choose from and they range from free to ones you have to pay for.

How these amazing little apps work is they ask you a series of questions like what your average earnings are, your age, your lifestyle, your health history as well as when you plan on retiring. They then take all that information and calculate exactly when you should start saving as well as providing a few investment plans for you to choose in a list that will link you to retirement planning websites.

When it comes to actually starting to put cash away there are a few options that you could start out on, for example a good place to begin would be opening a savings account with your local bank or building society. Savings accounts are great as depending on the interest rate they can actually grow in size, plus you can pay a fraction of your wage into every month.

Although the only downside to this option that the interest rates can regularly change so you’ll have to continually check how much you’re getting in interest from your account and shop around if better offers appear.

Or if you’re not keen on that option you could try speaking to your HR department or boss at work to see what kind of retirement plans your company offers and if there are any benefits from signing up to it like company stock or health cover.

If you’re feeling brave you could try sinking some of your cash into the stock market, although this may at first seem like you’re just throwing your money away an investment in the stock market can be quite lucrative. The trick to a successful investment is to build a varied portfolio of investments, don’t sink all of your cash into one area of the market, try to spread it out as far as possible in a scattered approach.

Or if you don’t fancy investing in stocks and would like something more stable you could try an IRA plan. What these involve is depositing money into an account and the cash deposited is not susceptible to tax so you can make the most of the money that you put into it.

Another option is to try a gold IRA plan, these are always a great option to try as they’re easy to set up and your gold investment can come in different forms from golden jewellery, coins and even bullion.

How this plan works is you exchange cash for gold equal to the same amount, you then either store it using a security service, give it to an investment broker or keep it locked up in your home. Then you watch the market and then sell your gold when it reaches an amount that you’re happy with.

Gold is a great place to invest for beginners as it’s stable and always increasing in value, although there is the odd dip it’s small and rarely lasts for too long. When you’re making an investment in gold you can do it in a range of options. For starters you could sink cash into stocks in the metal itself or companies that mine, manufacture or market gold on a regular basis.

Plus because you’re using it as a way of funding your retirement your initial investment is likely to double or even triple in worth depending on the activity of the market over the years.

Overall what we’ve covered is just some of the basics that you can use when you’re planning your retirement, so if you’re struggling just try using a few of these options and you should be able to make a plan that fits your own personal needs easily.

References:

http://www.socialsecurity.gov/retirement/

http://www.goldiranavigator.com/

https://www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en/articles/checklist-things-to-do-as-retirement-approaches

http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/publications/10_ways_to_prepare.html

http://moneyweek.com/investing-in-gold/