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People planning for their retirement, who are in their 50’s and nearing retirement, are in the most important phase of building their corpus.

Indians are now focusing more on current expenses instead of saving or planning for their future. However, experts suggest, people should be focusing on their long-term retirement goal to provide financial security and financial freedom in the future, according to a survey by PGIM India Mutual Fund.

Hence, while planning for your retirement, you should equally focus on where you put your fund while collecting the money, and then where to distribute it after you retire.

To start with, while accumulating your retirement corpus, save around 10 to 15 per cent of your gross pay towards your retirement fund. Later this amount should be increased to 25 per cent if you are starting late. Along with that, note that there are some instruments that you need to have in your retirement portfolio.

For instance, opting for a life insurance plan, especially a term plan, will be cheap on your pockets and will benefit you as it’s a pure risk plan. Hence, experts say having a term insurance plan with an adequate cover is necessary.

For your retirement planning, on the investment front, experts say investors could look at a variety of products. Hence, you need to determine the ideal product mix between debt and equity. During the retirement years, an investor must have a mix of both growths and fixed income investments, given the retirement period is generally long.

Having said that, there are various instruments for retirement planning beyond EPF and PPF. Low-risk instruments, such as Fixed Deposits, Public Provident Fund, along with investments in equity funds via SIP, National Pension System, among others, can be opted for by investors. Other mixes of products that could be looked at are guaranteed plans with a mix of Ulips for long-term investments. However, keep in mind not to take on more risk than you can handle, in case the market drops.

People planning for their retirement, who are in their 50’s and nearing retirement, are in the most important phase of building their corpus. This is the time when income is at its peak, liabilities are getting closed and people have the maximum potential for savings. Hence, at this time one should aim for higher growth in one’s corpus.

Industry experts suggest, at this phase, the appropriate asset allocation should be a high allocation to equity, with smaller allocations to international equity funds, debt, and a small allocation to gold as well to add diversification to the portfolio. People nearing retirement should not look away from equity altogether and add them to their portfolio with a 10+ year horizon.