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Many budding retirees plan to travel, relax and enjoy the company of their spouses when they officially stop working. But such plans only are possible if men and women take steps to secure their financial futures in retirement.
According to a recent survey by the personal finance education site MoneyTips.com, roughly one-third of Baby Boomers have no retirement plan. The reason some may have no plan is they have misconceptions about how much money they will need in retirement. Successful retirees understand the steps to take and how to live on a budget.
Propelled by sweeping demographic, economic, and lifestyle changes, retirement in America is experiencing a transformational shift. Starting with the "baby boomer" cohort (those born between 1946 and 1964), more workers plan to delay retirement past the traditional age of 65. Financial factors, including the disappearance of old fashion pensions that pay retirees an income for life and those expanding lifespans that can mean funding a retirement lasting three-decades or longer, have been the two main drivers of this trend.
Tips for preparing a new career or volunteer path for retirement.
Americans’ idea of “retirement” is changing, and many people today are looking to spend their latter years of life doing meaningful and engaging activities—whether that involves income-generating work, volunteering, or both.
In fact, an AARP survey found that 37 percent of working Americans ages 50 to 64 plan to keep working after retiring from their current job. Of those, 44 percent plan to change fields.
Tips for estimating your expenses after you stop working
Planning for retirement means making a lot of educated assumptions—where you will live, how much income you will generate (based partly on how your investments will perform) and how long you will live. One of the most important assumptions, though, is how much you will spend in retirement—as that determines how much income you’ll need each month or each year.
Here are the key questions to ask yourself to determine the right age to start claiming benefits.
You can claim Social Security retirement benefits as early as age 62, which also happens to be the most common age people start claiming them, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. But while it might be tempting to begin that early, you should think twice.