Challenging to set a fixed amount as retirement goal
Sometimes we might think of having a fixed value as our retirement goal and work towards that. But because the value of money keeps changing and our needs keep changing every day, it is hard to fix an amount and work towards that. For example, someone who is living as a single might have smaller expenses but when the person gets married the costs increase, and when we have our kid the expenses spike even further. With all these things, we cannot say that a particular value can be sufficient to make a living.
Inflation is the important thing
When it comes to financial planning, inflation is a very important thing. We cannot make any plans by taking inflation out of the equation. Many factors can affect our financial growth and inflation is the top item in that list. The value of the money we have in our hands right now may not be the same after a few years. There is a possibility that the asset we are holding can grow but the money that we are holding in our hand right now will not grow.
This is one of the primary reasons why people who are working in a job is given a raise once a year or multiple times a year. The raise in salary is mostly above the inflation value and if the value is below the inflation value then the employee should look for a better job with a better salary to take care of their needs. The reason is because gradually in the years to come the money we are earning may not be sufficient to make a living.
Increased money needs after retirement
Even after we retire, we mostly decide to live with the passive income we are getting from the money we have saved so far. Let's say if we retire at 50 years of age, the inflation will not retire along with us. It will keep happening. If we don't plan retirement without inflation, it is hard to handle the money needs after retirement.
We mostly think of making our money work after our retirement. But we have to make sure that the money is capable of beating inflation and earning us more than the inflation value. Otherwise, we will not be able to sustain in the long run. At the age of 50 if we are getting a particular amount as passive income and if we continue to get the same amount at 60 or 70 years too, that may not be sufficient for us. The passive income that we are generating should also keep increasing along with the increase in the number of years we are living.
Reliability on our family members
Even though it is challenging to fix an amount to have for retirement, we can sometimes have a small dependency on our partners or our children. In India, mostly the culture is like parents take care of their children till they start going to their jobs and after a point when the parents get retire, children take care of them by fulfilling their basic needs. This is something that we should be considering before making a retirement plan. If we want to retire early, we have to also make sure we have coverage for our family members as well. If we are the only earning member in the family the other members will be dependent on us and thus we have to have a proper income stream to support everyone in the family.