I’m going to broadly answer this one with a very general plan for someone around 40. I’m missing a lot of key information, so you should definitely check out my financial coaching page. Shameless plug!
1. Make a plan This is a very specific timeline and in that period you’ll have some serious action points to achieve retirement. Planning these means that you’ll always be focused, or in the case you lose sight, you can revert back to the plan. This is huge for motivation and I still have my original retirement plan from 2013.
2. Check your budget to see how much you spend The first thing I would always advise is to set a budget. Knowing how much your life costs determines how much you need to retire. Look at aggressively reducing this now, so that you can put a greater percentage of your income towards your retirement plans.
3. Make sure your money and anything you add over the next 5 years can fund your retirement £300k is a lot of money, but is it enough for you to retire on? If your budget is £20,000 per year, then using a 4% withdrawal rate, you would loosely need £500,000 at retirement to fund that lifestyle. I am a bit more conservative with my planning, and use 2%-3% myself. But 4% is generally best practice to give a plan to focus on. If you know how much you need, that’s your target number for retirement
4. Put the money to work for you. You could invest, look at income-generating assets or use the money to start a business. Between the money you have, the money you can add over the next 5 years and the growth of this. You need to figure out the best way to make your money work for you. 5. Revisit the plan every 6 months and adjust as necessary.Lastly, revisit this often. 5 years isn’t a long time and you might need to adjust your plan as you go. That’s normal and not an issue as long as you prepare for it.
