Green Retirement

Should you take your company’s voluntary early retirement package?  While the idea of early retirement is appealing to most employees, many employees hesitate taking their company’s voluntary early retirement package, out of fear that the package will not be sufficient enough to enable them to successfully retire.

That’s too bad.  Many employees who refuse their company’s voluntary early retirement package, may actually be in a position to retire, and end up missing a wonderful opportunity to increase their retirement savings.  Employees considering  voluntary early retirement, will often make the mistake of either consulting a financial planner, or an online retirement calculator to determine if the package is right for them.

The reason consulting a financial planner, or online retirement calculator is a mistake, is because both over estimate a person’s actual retirement savings needs.  Sometimes by a million dollars or more.  Not only does the current retirement planning formula over estimate retirement savings needs, it is also completely inaccurate, based on a person’s irrelevant salary.  Naturally, after receiving a high retirement savings needs estimate, the employee refuses their company’s voluntary early retirement package.

The simple logical truth regarding retirement savings needs, is that the amount of savings you need to retire, is determined by how much you will spend in retirement.  You determine how much you will spend in retirement, therefore you determine how much savings you need for retirement, your salary is completely irrelevant when it comes to retirement planning.  This is the Green Retirement Planning difference, and how Green Retirement Planning enables individuals to retire with less savings, and with much greater accuracy.

Here is an example of the difference between Green Retirement and Traditional Retirement Planning:

The average American couple earning $80,000 per year will be told by a financial planner, or online calculator, that they will need $1,600,000 to retire.  If the same couple plans to spend $2,250 per month in retirement, Green Retirement calculates with greater accuracy, that the couple will need $600,000 to retire.  A million dollar difference!  If the company offers the employee a voluntary early retirement package worth $150,000, then the couple only requires $450,000 to retire, and there are a lot more Americans with a net worth of $450,000 than there are with a net worth of $1,600,000.

Do yourself a favor, if your company is offering a voluntary early retirement package, don’t miss out on the opportunity.  Try the Free Voluntary Early Retirement Calculator, at the Green Retirement Planning website, and find out if you have enough savings to retire.