Personal Finance: Top 5 Sources of Retirement Income

Diversify your retirement income. Image: USAToday (Instagram)

Here in the Philippines, a regular retiree would usually have two sources of income come retirement time. The first source is the traditional pension. The second one is income provided by his children or relatives. While the former arrives monthly, what is the latter does not exist at all? What if the child is too financially-strained to provide for his elderly parents? Money is something that doesn’t come easily, especially if you are already past your prime. Sometimes, even the 60 and 70-somethings find it a responsibility to supplement their children’s income that even their own needs (like medicines and regular check-up with the doctor) are neglected. If you are in your 20s and 30s, perhaps, you might want to consider changing how your future your should. You don’t want to grow old poor and pitiful, right? The best thing that you should do if you really want to boost your income stream even during your golden years is to diversify. Here are some tips that you might want to consider to make sure that plentiful of cash remains in your pocket even way beyond your retirement years.

Invest in dividend-yielding investments.
Image: VentureBeat

Place your money in dividend-yielding investments

While you are at the peak of your earning potentials, invest in as many dividend-yielding investments as you can. Place your money in stocks, mutual funds or dividend-yielding insurance and see them grow over time. Do this as long as you’re employed and come retirement time, you’ll be happy to find out that you have actually amassed a fortune!

Invest in rental properties. Image source here

Invest in rental properties

If you own two or three properties, try to max out their earning potentials by letting them to other people. This is a great source of passive income because as long as somebody uses your property, you’re sure that money will keep coming to your pocket monthly.

Earn money from what you love doing the most. Image source here

Cash-in on your hobbies

Are you gifted as a writer? Do you love cooking? Is there anything special about your hobby? Now that you’re retired, perhaps, it’s high time to put them into money-making ventures. If you’re a writer, why not write a book, start a blog, or be other people’s ghost-writer or researcher? There’s a huge demand for writers these days, actually. If you love to cook or bake, why not start a homebased catering business? Or if you’re good in crafts, you can start an ecommerce business and sell handmade stuffs online. Retirement is not just about staying laidback and doing nothing. It’s also all about unearthing the passions that you’ve set aside when you’ve been too focused on your career. Sooner or later, you will realize that there’s a brand new life in stored for you!

Invest in annuities. Image source here

Invest in annuities

Annuities are like pensions, too and you get a fixed sum of money for life or for a certain period of time in exchange for paying your monthly contributions for like 10 or 20 years. Annuities are usually offered by an insurance company, so if you feel like creating another income stream for your retirement, this might be a great option for you, too.