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How to apply archery to planning your retirement income

15 November 2023
As with most sports, archery requires skill, accuracy and preparation. You take into account external and environmental factors like wind speed, humidity, and the distance the arrow needs to travel to find its mark.

With your eye keenly on the target, you aim your bow and release the arrow towards its goal. Hildegard Wilson, Head of Investment Solutions at Glacier Invest, illustrates how planning your retirement income is surprisingly similar.

Getting started

Preparing for your retirement should start, literally, decades before your 60th or 65th birthday, the age at which many companies, almost automatically, terminate your employment. Your retirement journey starts with the pot of retirement savings that you have accumulated either in your employer pension fund, retirement annuity, preservation funds or, ideally, a combination of these. These savings, arguably, form the most important arrow in your quiver to sustain you financially during your retirement. The significance of the amount that you save cannot be overstated. But retirement is the start of a new journey.

What is the ultimate target?

After retirement, the target, first and foremost, is not to run out of money. But where to invest to hit your bull’s eye? That is the question. If your investment amount is the quiver, where you invest is the force with which you release the arrow. The further the target, the more power you would require to reach it. Similarly, the longer your investment horizon, the higher your allocation to growth assets should be, so as to decrease the probability of you running out of money.

At Glacier Invest, we have developed the Real Income Solutions that includes growth assets such as equity investments, to ensure your probability of hitting your target.

What’s in your control and what’s not?

Just as external forces outside of your control, such as wind and weather, influence the trajectory of your arrow, so too will market conditions impact the journey to your target. Let’s consider some of these external forces:

  • How long you are likely to live. It’s sensible to plan for living beyond the age of 80 – most people enjoy this length of longevity nowadays. Life expectancy has increased worldwide.
  • The market conditions that prevail at the time of your retirement and during the years when you will need to draw a retirement income.
  • Emergencies or unexpected expenses. Life happens, as do adverse events, even after you retire. Unexpected expenses that place a strain on your income need to be taken into account and should be planned for.
  • How much you draw. The less income you draw, the more likely you are not to run out of money.

Just like the wind or humidity impacts on your success in archery, many factors are beyond your control in investing. The Glacier Invest Real Income Solutions reduces the impact of external factors by skilfully combining smoothed investments, market-linked investments, as well as alternative investments to mitigate the risks that impact your investment and contribute confidently to ensuring that you meet your mark.

For further information on the Glacier Invest Real Income Solutions, read more.

Glacier Financial Solutions (Pty) Ltd is a licensed financial services provider.

Sanlam Life Insurance Ltd is a licensed life insurer, financial services and registered credit provider (NCRCP43).

Glacier Financial Solutions (Pty) Ltd is a licensed discretionary financial services provider, trading as Glacier Invest FSP 770.

Sanlam Multi-Manager International (Pty) Ltd FSP 845 is a licensed discretionary financial services provider, acting as a Juristic Representative under Glacier Invest.

As a Juristic Representative of Glacier Invest, Sanlam Multi-Manager International (Pty) Ltd manages the retail investment solutions.