Whether you are employed or self-employed, retirement is inevitable, and it's appropriate to plan for it early to avoid inconveniences. You need to create a plan and focus on it to enjoy the benefits once you retire. However, the earlier you start, the better, and you also need to find ways to increase these benefits. How does one plan for retirement? Here are some ways.

Contribute to Your 401(K)

If employed, it's definite your employer contributes your pre-tax money retirement benefits. This contribution is a great advantage, but your benefits will still be subjected to taxes, including the income tax, Medicare, and the Social security tax. How much should I invest in my 401k? "According to the experts at SoFi Invest, the contribution depends on how much you can invest without hurting your monthly budget." Suppose the employer offers a Roth 401(k) feature, which taxes you before making contributions. In that case, it's better to check its benefits after the tax cut and negotiate on a better contribution mode.

Get a Contribution Match

Most employers do offer 401(k) plan contributions to their employees, which sometimes don't add enough to meet retirement demands. This situation calls for a personal contribution to match the employers. You should always try as much matching your employers' contribution to earn the free money. Failing to make such contributions fails your employer to contribute too.

Open an IRA Account

Even when employed, it's necessary having an Individual Retirement Account (IRA) to supplement your retirement benefits. You can open a traditional IRA account whose contributions are tax-deductible with taxed benefits, or the Roth IRA, which comprises after-tax contributions with no withdrawal taxes. You can do Roth IRA when you suspect taxes will be higher during your retirement period. All these are withdrawn after attaining 59 ½ years.

Take Advantage of Catch-up Contributions

In most cases, annual contributions to 401(k) and IRA accounts are limited to specific amounts. If you want to save more and you are past 50 years, you can make catch-up contributions. Catch-up contributions are done separately to 401(k) or IRA accounts and significantly boost your overall retirement savings.

Automate Your Savings

Besides having retirement savings accounts, you can also make automated bank savings for your retirement every month. With automatic funding, money gets deducted and saved to your savings account on each payday. There are also apps and software to guide you through these processes, which you can combine with your IRA or 401(k) account for a substantial amount after retirement. You can increase the savings percentage each month, depending on your income.

Reduce your Extra Expenses and Stash the Extra Cash

You can reduce your working days expenses and put the saved amount in a savings account for retirement use. Besides reducing the expenses, you can commit your pay rise, bonuses, and overtime payments to savings account to be used after retirement.

There are many ways you can plan for your retirement, with the primary ones listed above. You can create your retirement plan and then plan your savings to meet your goals. If not achieving the set targets, you can combine two or more of the tips highlighted above while diversifying your income-generating venues.