What’s the best way to save for retirement? Unfortunately, many of our traditional strategies don’t cut the mustard anymore! Relying on pensions, Social Security, or personal homes as an investment isn’t enough. There’s good news, though – you can still build and earn passive wealth to fund your dream retirement. 

If you’ve retired or started seriously planning for retirement, you may think it’s too late to do any worthwhile investing. After all, passive investing can take years, even decades, to really pay off. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have plenty to gain.

You’ve worked hard to secure your retirement. From 401Ks and IRAs to passive income and pensions, you want that hard work and fiscal dedication to pay off. Here's how to help protect those golden years ahead.

Motley Fool just reported on data from Transamerica that reveals that some 44 percent of American workers aren’t thinking about retirement investment. They’d rather wait until they’re closer to retirement age. Other priorities and concerns are at the forefront. While planning for retirement, many take a backseat, laissez-faire approach. 

We all have an idea in our minds of what a “dream retirement” looks like. Now more than ever, these dreams seem to be on shaky ground — prompting us to reassess how we’re planning and preparing for the future. 

All of us want to secure our financial future. More and more, we see that Americans are ill-equipped to support and sustain a worthwhile retirement — if they’re able to retire at all. But let’s look on the bright side: real estate investment is consistently rated as one of the best investments you can make. That designation comes from millionaires. 

Who doesn't want to retire early?

Most of us feel like early retirement is out of reach, but that just simply isn't the case. It is only beyond reach if we allow it to be. With the right financial strategy, preparing for early retirement doesn't have to be difficult or intimidating.

We all want to secure our retirement. After all, if you’re here you are no doubt in the market for some sort of security for your financial future. If that’s the case, you have to arm yourself with more than just some real estate investing know-how. While beginning to understand the wild west that is real estate is part of your success, another huge piece of the puzzle comes down to your financial savvy.

Each and every one of us wants a good retirement. Better than good! We want to be able to have more than enough to live out our golden years doing what we want to do, seeing what we want to see, and leaving a legacy for the next generation.

However, before we can even think about legacy building and how real estate investing can play a role, we have to plan for a retirement that fits our needs.  A retirement that we have envisioned, prepared for and brought made a reality!

Saving for retirement, however, isn’t like it used to be. Just a few decades ago, you could work for the same company for 40 years, retire, and live on your savings and a pension and not really worry about it. Not so anymore!  

Work culture has changed, and so have our retirement plans, our expenses, and our life expectancies. Planning for retirement takes a more active hand. So if you really want to lock down your financial future...

As we head into Spring, it’s time to take make room on the bookshelf from new reading! You may have some of these on your shelves already, but there’s no doubt some new releases you’ll want to check out, too.

For this list, we’re specifically covering books on retirement planning since many real estate investors look to use their investments as a way to save up for the future.