Ensuring that your retirement is comfortable is becoming increasingly difficult, regardless of whether you are 21 years old and drawing your first salary cheque, or 70 years old and well into your retirement years.
The main reason is that now you have to take more responsibility for decisions that will affect your retirement. Most of these decisions concern how your money is invested in both the years building up to retirement and after you retire.
Employers are no longer to take the risk and responsibility of ensuring their employees will get adequate pensions, which means that you have to be hands-on in all your affairs.
In addition to the increase in your responsibility, the array of financial products available for the many different retirement planning needs is expanding all the time.
And to complicate matters further, the rapid development of legislation has changed many of the ways retirement was handled in the past. Legislative changes range from the division of pension fund surpluses through to capital gains tax E and the end is not yet in sight.
The best way to make sure you can retire right, is to keep abreast of what is happening, arming yourself with as much knowledge as possible.
It is for this reason that Personal Finance and Old Mutual have joined forces to present this year's annual retirement seminar for readers, entitled Retire Right.
"Most people know that retirement planning is crucial, yet few know how to do it - which explains why many end up not retiring right," Mike Harper, the executive general manager at Old Mutual, says.
"Whatever your stage in life - middle age, just prior to retirement, or in retirement - this seminar should be a great help if you want to improve your retirement finances."
The programme has been designed to deal with all the main issues you need to take into account on the road to, at and after retirement.
This year's programme differs from previous years in that there will be three workshops dealing with the different phases of retirement planning as well as retirement itself. Well-known and respected financial advisers will conduct these workshops: The workshops are:
* Workshop One: Early retirement planning years conducted by Johannesburg-based financial adviser and radio talk show host, Bryan Hirsch;
* Workshop Two: The final lap to retirement conducted by Durban-based financial adviser and editor of a financial adviser's publication, Nigel Scott; and
* Workshop Three: Getting it right in retirement conducted by Johannesburg-based financial adviser and radio talk show host, Lionel Karp.
The topics that will be covered include the basics of retirement planning, finding the right retirement savings products and the tax implications of retirement.
The seminar will be held in Gauteng at Vodaworld, Midrand on Wednesday, March 14; in KwaZulu/ Natal at the International Conference Centre, Durban, on Friday, March 16; and in the Western Cape at the Lord Charles Hotel at Somerset West outside Cape Town, on Tuesday, March 20.
The cost of the seminar is R350 (including VAT). This includes comprehensive conference notes, lunch and teas.
For more information and to book your seat, click here.