Preparing for one’s retirement – as a single mum!!!

We do love life now more than ever, and we have to plan for our retirement 🙂

Dear world, a couple days ago, I came across some troubling though not so abnormal statistics. According to this CNBC article, a study revealed that men were more likely to start preparing for their retirement early than women – ok these were the article’s words: “The Global Investor Pulse Survey of 27,000 investors worldwide, including 4,000 Americans, found 53 percent of working-age American women have started saving for retirement, compared with 65 percent of men.”

I began to ponder. Why and why not? Before I could ask her questions, she asked me if I could write a blog about someone I knew who maybe consciously or unconsciously, thought and planned for their retirement. I immediately thought of my friend Bea …

Not so long ago, Bea had revealed to me that she had been saving money monthly in the informal banking sector known out here as ‘njangi’. Members in such informal banking, pool together resources for the monthly benefit of a member who then usually invested that lump sum money in an activity usually their business. In Bea’s case, they were all women in their njangi group, and most of them were single mothers.

Married women especially back home, have had the tradition of relying on their husbands or their “joint ownership” status, to do the preparation for their retirement although that approach also has it’s own load of ‘wahala’ (trouble in my local slang). You know, am always honest, when I was one, I did same too – helas I left without the least dime – hence am on my own, out in cold turkey 🙂

I have come to find this “njangi” concept really intriguing, and strongly think  I’ll be joining one of those groups eventually. Afterall, if I don’t plan for my retirement, whom am I counting on? Gone are the days when parents could count on their children for that!!!

And so in the meantime, and as a single mother, it is imperative for me to plan for my retirement. I have an account where I save the royalties from all my memoirs no matter how inconsequential for now ( I am no fool, and I know that in a few years to come, if I continue to work this hard, I could get some of Maya Angelou’s fame and fortune 🙂 and will die smiling 🙂 Why not)!

I am also looking forward to taking out a life insurance policy- Why? Why not! This to me also qualifies as retirement planning… afterall, even though I have been Battered and Tattered by and in Life, I am not Shattered!!!

Of course once settled down and with more hardwork, luck and good fortune, I’ll be able to make some investments of course ahead of my retirement – well if I get there – Why? Why not!

There are free financial tools you can use if you decide to get down to that business, or take it further up if you already are – just check it out at least if you’re curious.

Dear Ladies, especially the single women in the blogosphere, how do you plan for your retirement?  Do you even think about it? Why and Why not?