By Emmanuel Zvada The mere mention of the word “retirement” brings a certain relief and shifts the mood to those working hard daily in their eight-hour shifts. Retirement planning is essential and should be considered by almost everyone at an early stage of their professional life. To enjoy a peaceful retirement life later, you might have to consider starting retirement planning sooner. Planning your retirement at an early stage in life might buy you more time and also help you build a decent retirement corpus. Planning for retirement not only ensures additional sources of income but also helps in dealing with medical emergencies, fulfil life aspirations and makes one financially independent. Retirement is something that we should not be afraid of but rather be happy as we know that it is coming,thus giving us time to plan for it. In fact, after retirement, you can even still be able to pursue your unrealised dreams and still be active and busy. For the young generation, planning for your retirement should start now even if you are years away from your retirement. When can I retire? The ability to retire is very situational depending on each person’s financial situation, lifestyle, and future goals. However, understanding your current financial landscape and identifying the type of lifestyle you wish to have in retirement are great starting points. Retirement age is no longer cast in stone. It’s basically up to you and you can retire early if that’s your chosen option. Once you have a clear understanding of how much money you will need to live comfortably in retirement, you can run long-term asset projections to determine how your current asset base must grow as you approach the end of your career and by that you can project when you want to retire. Why do people retire? There are many reasons why people retire and this can be either early retirement or normal, one can retire for their personal wellbeing where they just cannot continue to work for their own reason or loss of job via retrenchment or the normal retirement where one has reached the age that they cannot continue to work efficiently and effectively. Everyone has different needs and goals for their retirement. It is sad, but the majority of people still do not begin their retirement planning until they are a few years away from retirement. One can retire but still become active and join other jobs that have less pressure or are less demanding or even decide to do their own business. Preparing and planning for retirement One may be getting a huge salary now and everything seeming to be well, but one question which remains and need to be answered is: “What next then after retirement and is there any sustainable plan?” Your stay in the company will not guarantee job stability but rather, for those nearing retirement the undeniable truth is that whenever a company has to downsize, employees nearing retirement tend to get axed first — so be ready. Realistically, the majority of people only start planning for retirement when they are about to retire. If you are