Saving money to apprehend the future with serenity is important. But if saving money is interesting, in order for you to enjoy a reserve of money when you retire, it is essential to think carefully about your investment strategy. Indeed, not all savings products are equal and will not generate the same results. To prepare for retirement and optimize your financial investments, here are some tips.
What's the point of saving for retirement?
Experts are unanimous: starting to save early is ideal to prepare for retirement. Indeed, personal and professional situations are constantly evolving and when you retire, unexpected events can occur. Over time, you may want to advance your professional career or develop new projects: life is full of surprises!
To maintain a certain serenity at the time of retirement, to compensate for hard knocks, the unexpected or a drop in income, it is crucial to set up a retirement savings plan.
From the age of 35, a situation report is sent to you every five years in order to keep you informed about your situation: this is the Individual Situation Statement (Relevé de Situation Individuelle). When you turn 55, an overall indicative estimate is sent to you, always with a view to allowing you to know where you stand as regards to pension. These documents are essential to help you verify, once the time comes to retire, that no miscalculations have been made or that an error concerning your professional background has not crept into your documents.
Determine your retirement savings strategy
A true roadmap for your retirement savings, a savings strategy prevents you from making a mistake when choosing a product: it is a matter of turning to the one that best suits your needs and your objectives. To do so, use the statements that were sent to you during your career and take the time to assess how much income you might lose when you retire.
Thus, you can choose to have a capital available at the beginning of your retirement, by recovering the fruit of your savings in one go, but you can also opt to build an additional income for life, in the form of an annuity that you will receive on a regular basis until your death.
Your personal situation and your objectives will determine your investment strategy: do you own your principal residence? Are you planning a job change? Do you have existing savings? Is your income to increase?
You must keep in mind that it takes an average of 20 years to build up a correct capital, without making a savings effort that would undermine your daily life as a working person. Thus, by considering early enough how much you want to get when you retire, you will be able to calculate the amount to be saved every month so as to obtain additional revenue.
Depending on these objectives, you will consider suitable solutions, either savings products, a securities account, a life annuity, a life insurance contract, or other solutions, which we are going to tell you about in the following lines.
How to save and which products to favor?
To build up comfortable savings for your retirement, you can opt for a life insurance policy, a PERIN, a PERECO, or for other solutions. But how do you know which product to choose?
Your savings can be made up of a single product or be diversified between different media: you get a very decent return, particularly by opting to invest in a securities account and by holding shares or bonds. It should be noted that this type of product depends largely on financial markets and it can take time to offer significant results.
If you are looking for precautionary savings, then you will need to focus on a product that combines both security and availability. In addition to the famous ‘Livret A’ passbook savings account, the ‘Livret de Développement Durable’ (Sustainable Development Passbook Account) (LDD) or the Livret d’Epargne Populaire (People’s Passbook Savings Account) (LEP), which make it possible to have money available at any time, it is also possible to turn to products such as the collective or individual Plan Epargne Retraite (Retirement Savings Plan) (PER), but also to the Plan d’Epargne en Actions (Equity Savings Plan) (PEA), and many others.
To differentiate between them, here are a few things you should know:
- Collective PER: it is a savings account set up by decision of the employer or through collective agreements. This employee savings system makes it possible to make regular deposits that result in the release of funds at the time of retirement or earlier. This solution is tax-efficient for both the company and the employee. The 2019 Pacte law led to the arrival of three products: the individual PER (PERIN), the collective PER (PERECO) and the mandatory PER (PERO). Deposits are thus still possible on PERCO, Madelin contracts, or PERP, which are old pension schemes, but the latter are no longer marketed.
- Individual PER: this is a long-term savings investment through voluntary deposits, deductible from income tax, and which can be transformed into a life annuity once the time comes to retire. It can also be recovered in the form of capital, totally or partially.
- Life insurance: this type of contract makes it possible either to benefit from a pension supplement or to transfer a capital. As regards to pension, life insurance is very interesting: it allows you to recover the saved amount at the end of the contract and thus benefit from a comfortable capital in accordance with the sums saved. The money can be recovered in one go or in the form of life annuities.
- PEA: the PEA is a tax-efficient solution that allows you to benefit from the activity of financial markets. Indeed, this product is designed to promote investment in European equities. Subject to a ceiling of €150,000 and concluded for a period of 8 years, it leads to the recovery of a capital or life annuities at the time of retirement.
As you will have understood, there are many solutions for you to optimize your pension. To choose the one most suited to your profile and your objectives, it is important to be well surrounded. Need advice? Experts from our wealth management consulting firm are at your disposal to set up the savings solution that suits you 100%!