It’s time to start planning for the future, when we retire

Many times we are worried about our life after death, but we tend to turn a blind eye on preparing our life after work or sports (if we are a professional player).

We've witnessed incidents where people collapse after receiving their letter of retirement from their employer.

We may feel for them, but we've got to ask the hard question on whether they had prepared themselves for the day.

As we live, we've got to start planning for the future that is not for life after death, but what are we going to do when it comes to retirement while we are still here on earth.

Today, former civil servants who are retired have now turned to the monthly Social Welfare benefits for their survival.

They've been classed with those who are living below the poverty line.

Though it seems sad, that is the reality when people don't prepare themselves for that next stage of life- not the pearly gates or those streets of gold but retirement.

For us, this is something we must take heed of and we should take appropriate steps in ensuring that we are financially stable and will be able to look after ourselves when we retire.

This is where ‘financially literacy' is very crucial. It's important that we understand basic money management skills such as living within a budget and also how to handle our debt repayments. Having little or no knowledge on managing our finances can affect us in many different aspects of life.

It's about having that set of skills and knowledge that allows us to make informed and effective decisions on all our financial resources.

Our education system offers little in terms of teaching financial literacy to students.

Well, perhaps this could be food for thought for those in authority to consider such subjects to be taught in schools and also for tertiary institutions to set-up such courses to accommodate those in the workforce as well.

As of now we're not alone because there are many people who struggle to manage their finances. But we cannot wait for things to happen as we're fortunate today, that there are many resources which we could tap to improve our knowledge on financial decisions.

Becoming financially literate does not happen overnight, it comes through practical experience and life lessons.

So let's not wait but instead venture out and start learning about these lessons and put them into practice. This is the way to go so that we can be in a far better position financially when it comes to our retirement day.

Becoming financially literate does not happen overnight, it comes through practical experience and life lessons.