What to live on in old age: 6 options

If you have been thinking about what to live on in old age, then you have probably looked through different alternatives. For example, help from children or savings. But there is another interesting option - long-term investments. This method has many advantages over the others, Semyon Kibalo assures. Once he invested in securities and now he does not need to work thanks to passive income.

In the book “Investor over the weekend. Guide to creating passive income »Kibalo tells by personal example how and where to invest in order to earn money without high risks. With permission from Alpina Publisher, Lifehacker publishes an excerpt from the second part of the book.

According to statistics, for 80% of people incomes do not increase after 35 years, and after 45 they begin to decline. Reasonable questions arise:

How to maintain the usual standard of living?
How can I help parents and children?
How to travel?

Well, in general, what to live on when for some reason you cannot or don’t want to work? I'll give you six options. I do not take into account the help of children - this option still does not entirely depend on you. Let's count on ourselves for now.

First option: state pension

Did you know that the average pension in Russia at the beginning of 2020 was 14,980 rubles? Will this amount be enough for your monthly expenses? I don't think so. Moreover, the state in 2013–2015. has already carried out an unsuccessful pension reform. Therefore, it is not worth waiting for something good in the future. However, if you want to experience this pleasure, you can independently achieve this level of passive income. You could call it a test drive of retirement at 40 or even earlier.

Many people still think that when they stop working, they will live on retirement. The state will not leave us in trouble. I object to them: “So it will be after 60 years. Not soon!" They answer: “So what? Why think about it now? I will resolve this issue later. " Me: "But the pension will definitely be less than the salary, how to maintain the usual standard of living?" They: "I don't understand …"

OK. For the most stubborn, I suggest a pension test drive. Watch your hands. So, let's say the average pension in Russia is 14,980 rubles per month (2020). It is necessary to accumulate capital, which will give monthly passive income equal to the pension payment. Let's accumulate it much earlier than in 60-65 years. Then the insight will come to us that on such pennies we can only survive. Well, then we still have time to fix everything and continue to invest safely.

How much capital is needed to generate passive income of 15,000 per month? On the day you plan to start spending money from your account, your funds should be kept in the most conservative investments. Their yield is 10% per year. Take it on faith for now. Let's count.

Passive income of 15,000 rubles per month is 15,000 × 12 = 180,000 rubles per year. If this is 10%, then the total capital is 180,000 × 10 = 1,800,000 rubles. By following my recommendations, you can easily achieve a yield of 15% per annum in rubles and accumulate this amount in just 10 years. At the same time, you need to save only 7,500 rubles a month. In this example, for clarity, I simplify the calculations. In reality, you still need to take into account inflation, indexation of pensions and other factors.

So, if you are now 35 years old, then by the age of 45 you will already be able to test the fabulous life of a Russian pensioner who made investments. This, by the way, is 20 years earlier than the onset of the retirement age for men. At the same time, you will have almost 2 million rubles in your account. Money that you can pick up at any time, convert into currency or build a house on it.

And a real pension is a spit of the state, which will arrive on your card every month. The total capital accumulated over tens of years will be kept by the state. Neither you nor your children can take full advantage of it.

By the way, the retirement age is calculated based on the average life expectancy in the country. That is, most people simply do not live to see it. But in every city there is a beautiful building of the Pension Fund. You can admire where your taxes are cleverly invested.

The guest of my podcast # 86 Sergey Spirin, an investment expert, spoke very clearly about the uselessness of a pension: “Our people have an old Soviet habit of thinking that the state will support them with a pension and save them. But all the tendencies that I see both in our country and in the West indicate that this will not happen. And that if you do not form your own pension on your own, then most people expect nothing but poverty in old age. Everything goes to the fact that the pension as a financial institution will come down to almost zero."

Let's sum up

There is no need to hope for a state pension. She is small and will not be soon.
You can test the life of a poor Russian pensioner ahead of schedule in order to come to your senses in time and take care of your old age.
Your financial plan for life: save so much money so that later you will receive at least as much as your salary or business income.

With the first option, everything is clear, let's move on to the second.

Option two: working until old age

What if you get fired or get tired of working? This, for example, happened during the crisis associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2020, 66,820 individual entrepreneurs were closed, which is 77% more than in 2019. The bulk of entrepreneurs did not save money for a rainy day and found themselves in a difficult situation.

Working all your life at an unloved and even beloved job is also not the best option. Maybe create your own company?

Option three: starting a business

Unfortunately, many people spend their whole lives looking for their own business. But even if you started young enough, there is no guarantee that you will be able to build a company that will work without you.

Creating a profitable business is difficult, unpredictable and, according to statistics, only 10% of people succeed. In my opinion, to run a business you need to have innate qualities. And it's not easy. Being an entrepreneur is about carrying a heavy cross, balancing on a slippery slope, and working 24 hours a day.

And most people don't like upstarts. We'll have to come to terms with it. If you succeed, good. However, it is better to find a way to generate income that would suit absolutely everyone. One of these ways can be real estate investment.

The fourth option: renting out an apartment

Yes? So simple? How long will you save for an apartment? What if during this time you are fired or a crisis breaks out? The money will be lost, the bank will take the apartment. This is simply dangerous. Well, even if you save up for an apartment, how much will you get for it per month - 30,000 or 40,000 rubles? Is that enough? I do not think. In the fourth part of the book, in the chapter “Why renting an apartment is a bad idea,” I will analyze in detail the nuances of real estate investment.

In a future chapter, I will discuss alternative ways to invest in real estate. This is where the real pattern breaking will be. In the meantime, the fifth option for receiving money in the future comes to mind …

Fifth option: bank deposit

It's already warmer. A good start. And if at the same time you will still reduce your spending, then in a couple of years you can get out “in the king”.

However, there are pitfalls here. It's not fools who work at the bank. The interest on the deposit is unlikely to keep up with inflation. In the long run, you will simply be losing money.

The sixth option remains.

Sixth option: safe investments on the exchange

"What did you just say?" - Yes, many people think it is some kind of difficult business for the rich. This is not at all the case. As I wrote earlier, you can start investing from 1,000 rubles, giving this no more than an hour a month.

When Alexei is 18, and Ulyana is 20, then the account We are talking about the personal account of the children of the author of the book. will grow to at least $ 150,000. Children themselves will be able to dispose of what to do with this capital. For example, spend on the first installment of a mortgage, go on a long journey or realize your dream.

I saw this idea in the book A Million for My Daughter by Vladimir Savenok, a guest of my Business Library podcast. Later in the book I will cite an excerpt from our conversation.

Here's another simple example with Sberbank shares:

In 2003, a Sberbank share cost 7 rubles.
In 2019 - already 236 rubles (while dividend payments for 2019 amounted to 16 rubles per share).

If you invested 300,000 rubles in 2003, you would buy 43,000 shares. In 2019, they would have received dividends in the amount of 685,000 rubles, plus the shares themselves would be worth 10 million rubles.

In fact, this topic is much simpler than it might seem at first glance. Investing in stocks is like starting your own business, but the second option has significant drawbacks.

Investor Over the Weekend: A Guide to Creating Passive Income, Semyon Kibalo

If after this passage you are thinking about investing, "Investor for the Weekend" will come in handy. The book explains in simple language where to start, what risks to consider and how to try to ensure a comfortable existence in the future.

"Alpina Publisher" gives Lifehacker readers a 15% discount on the paper version of the book "Investor for the Weekend" using the INVESTOR21 promo code.