Invest in Relationships to make Retirement Planning Successful!

Invest in Relationships for Successful Retirement Planning: Why?

The words "retirement planning", "financial planning", "investment strategies", and other investment decisions seem so heavy and technical. Amidst financial jargon, we often forget the importance of relationships, the essence of life, and social bonding. There is more to investing, beating inflation, and managing post-retirement corpus when it comes to retirement planning. 

Relying only on Financial Prudence will Partially Help you to Achieve Retirement Planning

To achieve a comfortable retirement, we focus on increasing our salaries, banking on discipline, and investing prudently and regularly. Most often, we need to realise that creating a large retirement corpus is not enough for a happy retirement. 

Then, what's the x-factor we are missing in our retirement planning? It is the social capital. What's that fancy word mean? It is how we treat our family members, be it your wife, child, father, mother, or other relatives/friends. How you treat others will determine how they treat you as you get older. 

Do you still need to learn how investing in relationships can help you make a successful retirement plan? If yes, keep reading to know how investing in social capital can help in a happy life after retirement. 

Invest in Relationships for Successful Retirement Planning

Investing in social capital will determine how your family members, relatives, and friends treat you after retirement. You can't enjoy money alone. Your physical, mental, and emotional well-being and lifestyle after retirement depends on your current investment in social capital. 

The better you treat others, the more chances are there that they will reciprocate when you need them in your older age. Higher inflation can adversely affect your retirement corpus. Social capital always compounds no matter how high the inflation is. 

Invest in Relationships just like Financial Investment

If you look around, you'll find more people talking to others with disrespect. Most of them don't consider that they will also age. Their health will deteriorate. If you keep disrespecting people, it'll bite you when you retire. This is because, with age, you become weak in health and finance (no matter how large a corpus you've created). No matter how much money or wealth you may have accumulated, you can only manage it well with a trusted relative, friend, or professional. 

To have a better life after becoming a senior citizen (60 years or above), you should start building or improving relationships early. The earlier you start, the better. It is just like your investment decisions. The earlier you start, the better will be the effect of compounding. 

You invest systematically to create a large corpus over the years with lesser risk. Similarly, it would be best if you kept building relationships over the years by treating them nicely. The golden rule of nice behaviour is to treat others just the way you want yourself to be treated by others. 

How to Invest in Relationships or Social Capital?

You can build up or increase your social capital:

1. By taking care of others (especially your family members, relatives, and friends)

   - Do you take care of your family members when they are sick or need your attention?

   - Are you supportive of your spouse to grow in their career?

   - Do you spend time with your child?

2. Treating others with care, love, and affection

   - Do you allow your child to put forward their opinion?

   - Have you made the home environment toxic for your spouse and children?

   - Do you force your views on your child all the time?

   - Are you a caring husband or wife?

   - Do you take care of your parents or your spouse's parents?

   - Do you judge your spouse's or child's choices constantly?

3. By reacting positively to other

   - Your social capital depends to a large extent on the way you respond to your life partner's or children's decisions.

   - Do you respect your child's choice of a life partner?

   - How do you react when things are beyond your control?

   - How do you react when your spouse says something you were not expecting?

   - Do we help your relatives when they need it most?

Explaining with an Example

Have you watched the movie "It's a Wonderful Life"? It was released in 1946. This wonderful movie teaches us why we should invest in relationships more than money. Making relations matter but what pays most is having relationships. 

Let's explore the plot to understand why you should watch this movie with your family before planning your retirement. 

The movie revolves around the life of the protagonist George Bailey, a 38-year-old man. He is considering suicide so his family can get the life insurance settlement and pay off the accumulated debt. In the film, you see that George always makes sacrifices for his family, friends, and community. 

When he was young, he abandoned his world tour plan to run his father's loan business. He even gave his college fees to his brother. The Great Depression started at a time when he was planning his honeymoon. So, he abandons his honeymoon plans and lends all his savings to help his clients and businesses in the community survive. When he was thinking of suicide, the community came together to pay off his debts by making small donations. 

That's what happens when you take care of others. Retirement planning is about more than creating a large corpus. It also includes investing in social capital that compounds over the years and pays you off when you are down or need the most.

Takeaway

Your post-retirement lifestyle depends on two factors:

• The size of the corpus (larger the better)

• Your social capital (inflation-proof)

The next time you plan your retirement, you should invest in relationships and make your financial planning and investment decisions or strategies.