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For many young people, retirement feels like a lifetime away. But financial coach Nicholas Dean say the earlier you begin planning, the greater your chances of building the future you want.

In Your Best Self, we look at why retirement planning should start long before your final day on the job.
Transcript
00:00The following is brought to you by Maybelline Serum Lipstick.
00:11Landing your first job often comes with dreams of buying a car, owning a home, or traveling the world.
00:17But financial coach Nicholas Dean says there's one goal many young people overlook, planning for retirement.
00:23The first thing a young person needs to do now is to become aware or conscious about life in retirement.
00:30And that's what financial planning is all about.
00:33Financial planning forces a person to imagine or visualize what the future position is or the future goal is.
00:42Whether it's driving a new car, living in a new house, and in retirement, what would life be like?
00:48Dean says retirement planning begins with a vision.
00:51Once you know what you want your future to look like, the next step is creating a financial plan to
00:57get there.
00:57So you start with a vision, but then you have to put some numbers behind it to make it a
01:02good financial plan.
01:03And then start working a plan to achieve that goal.
01:07So I would say that is the first thing that a person needs to do earlier.
01:13The earlier you do that, it's better.
01:15And while retirement may be decades away, waiting could come at a cost.
01:20Starting early gives your savings more time to grow and helps offset the rising cost of living caused by inflation.
01:27Dean also encourages employees to make the most of workplace retirement plans, especially when employers match contributions.
01:34Taking advantage of any kind of company retirement plan, employer-based retirement plan is essential, especially if you have the
01:44opportunity to make voluntary contributions.
01:49If such a plan, one, is performing well because not all plans are accumulating interest at the same rate, I
02:00would say it's free money.
02:02And this is the main reason now.
02:04It's free money because most employers are matching you one-to-one.
02:08So if you put a dollar, the employer matches it.
02:12And sometimes it's obligatory, it's mandatory to be part of that plan.
02:17But because some of them give you a voluntary option where they will then match your voluntary contributions in some
02:24measure.
02:25That one, I would say, voluntary contributions, they call it, I think it's AVC, annual voluntary contributions.
02:35If you could get an employer to match those, then don't leave that money on the table.
02:41He also questions against depending solely on government benefits in retirement, saying personal savings should be a key part of
02:49every financial plan.
02:50Like, for instance, NIS, you need to have a student loan contributions inside, 750 weekly contributions over your working life
02:59to be eligible for NIS pension, a national insurance pension.
03:05And that, even national insurance, it has now been changing their rules as to when they're going to pay you
03:12a pension.
03:13Save as much as you can, as fast as you can, for as long as you can.
03:18Saving is the answer to all financial goals.
03:21Retirement may seem far away, but according to Dean, every dollar you save today brings you one step closer to
03:28the future you want tomorrow.
03:30The key isn't how much you start with, it's simply getting started.
03:34Until next time, I am Charlotte Kister reminding you to be your best self.
03:45The preceding was brought to you by Maybelline Serum Lipstick.
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