Your parents have always supported you and it's time to give back to them by helping them with their retirement plan. Insufficient Social Security benefits and a culture that focuses on consumption over saving means that our parents' generation is financially vulnerable during retirement. An estimated 50% of older Americans are struggling with retirement.

Also, while supporting parents in retirement and old age is becoming common practice for millennials, the reality is that we can help them more if we guide them on how to make the right plans that give them financial freedom and peace of mind.

Ideally, we should all start saving for retirement as soon as we start working, but the reality is that we do not do it or we rely the expectation of Social Security benefits, which do not provide for much when we are old enough to depend on them.

Fortunately, there are some great ways that you can help them get ready and set them up for a stable, enjoyable retirement. They may even be able to retire early with the right tips.

Helping Your Parents Get Ready for Retirement

Here are some suggestions for young adults with parents nearing retirement age. These tips should make it a lot easier to help them get ready for retirement.

Consider the options of liquidating physical assets

Your parents might have limited cash available to them as they near retirement age. However, they might also be property rich. You might be able to use this to their advantage.

If your parents have a home that is worth a lot of money, then it might be worth selling it and downsizing to a property in an area with a lower cost of living. However, this comes with its own complications and costs. People have to pay commissions for the real estate agent, costs of moving and deal with the grief of relocating.

A better option to consider might be a reverse mortgage. You can see how much you can get based on this calculator. Reverse mortgages allow retirees to get cash in the form of a loan that they probably won't even have to pay back while they are still alive. The lender will credit the principal and interest from the loan against the estate and collect after they pass away. As long as they don't sell the property and continue paying their insurance and property taxes, then this might be the best way to go.

Analyze your situation

Start by finding out about your parents' existing retirement plans. It's a sensitive subject, but it needs to be brought up. It's best to approach it in an unbiased manner and involve your siblings, so as not to give rise to suspicions or misunderstandings.

If they have a retirement account, find out with which institution and how much they will earn in retirement. You need to consider whether they are self-employed. You must ask them if they have a personal savings account or life insurance with a retirement savings fund.

Create a budget together

The purpose of a good retirement plan is to ensure that they continue to have enough income to live the same lifestyle after they stop working. This can only help if you have a good budget for your aging parents.

Therefore, you need to figure out how much their expenses will amount to and how much their pension and Social Security benefits will actually provide. With this in mind, it will be easier to draw up a plan that will help make their income whole so they can live peacefully in their old age.

When coming up with a savings plan, you should consider the increase in costs due to inflation, so you should look for an investment account that will provide sufficient returns to compensate for it.

Start now

Do not procrastinate. The sooner you start saving for retirement, the better off they will be. Remember that it doesn't matter how much you start with, but what you accumulate in the years prior to your parents' retirement.

Consider that reinvestment of interest and dividends will make the balance grow faster due to the laws of compound interest, so what is saved for this purpose should not be diverted to other purposes.

Even if your parents have a retirement plan, talking with them about it and looking for alternatives to complement it will always be a good idea and will help them live their golden years better and without worries.

Guide them and help them now as they have done throughout your life

If you think a lot about the future and want to start building it today, you can look into the best investment plans for their situation. You may want to speak with financial advisors and request information on their investment plans.