Pensions: Exercise for your long-term financial wellbeing!

I have a wife, three young children and I work for myself. It can be tough to find time to get the exercise that I would like. I know exercise will help me feel better and will more than likely be extremely beneficial to me in the long-term if I keep it up. As such I have started to do a boxcercise class.

For me, exercise is not just about feeling good now; it’s about trying to feel good in the future. It’s about trying to condition my body to be healthy and strong and in the long term I hope it might extend my life. I know that exercise can improve my immune system which in turn may allow me to be more active in my later years.

A Pension is a personal retirement savings account (PRSA). You could say its exercise for your financial wellbeing. It’s about putting the work in now, so that you may benefit in the long term, particularly in your later years when you may not have the same opportunities to enhance your financial health.

There are days when for numerous reasons I really don’t want to get out to do the boxcercise. The days I push myself to get up and do it, I feel better and the days I give in and rest, I feel a little guilty. I can honestly say that any client that comes to me at retirement is happy when they have a Pension of their own to drawdown. In many cases they express remorse that they didn’t save more when they had the opportunity to do so.

Like exercise, the sooner you start contributing to a Pension the better the potential long term benefits. I know that I would prefer to retire as young as I can, but I also know that will be very much dependant on my physical health and my financial health. In both cases, I can only commit so much time/money now, but a little bit of both is better than nothing of either.