![]() Key considerations include your work plans, your health, and what other assets you have to support you while you wait. ![]() Sounds nice, but most people don’t wait that long, and you may have good reasons not to (for questions to ask to determine what’s best for you, go here). And for every year you wait after full retirement age until age 70, your benefits go up another 8%. If your full retirement age is 67 (or 66 and change, if you were born between 19) and you retire at 62, your benefits will be 28% to 30% lower than at full retirement age. You’re only two years away from being able to claim Social Security-but will you? Since the earlier you start the lower your benefits will be for the rest of your life, financial experts say to wait as long as possible. While you’re on a roll with this get-on-top-of-your-numbers stuff, plug your savings and other key info into a retirement calculator like this one or this one to see if you’re setting aside enough for retirement. Want more in-depth tracking, along with access to financial workshops? You might try You Need a Budget ($6.99 a month, with a one-month free trial). To put together a simple budget, sign up for Mint, which lets you link your financial accounts and track your spending by category. Knowing how much you’re spending now will help you figure out if your retirement savings are on track-or if you have to make adjustments like working longer or saving more. Among baby boomers, 45% admit to guessing, while only 27% are basing their savings target on estimated expenses. Fewer than one in 10 have used a retirement calculator. ![]() The 2018 Transamerica Retirement Survey found that even older worker guess about how much they need for retirement. Take advantage of your empty nest to play retirement catch-up That’s really not going to change in retirement.” How much will you spend a year in retirement? “Most people go through their whole lives and careers not knowing how much they spend regularly,” Sullivan says. A glass of wine or a cold brew might facilitate it as well. Your answers, especially the points of diversion, will help drive a discussion of your retirement hopes and dreams. Have your partner do the same thing, and then exchange papers. You might start with a simple exercise: Jot down when you want to retire, what your top three activities will be, where you imagine living, and whether you’ll do any work for pay, and write down what you think your spouse will answer as well. Planning together can be fun, and should be thought of as a series of conversations you’ll have over time rather than a one-and-done deal. In the most recent Fidelity Couples & Money Study, 43% of couples disagreed when asked at what age they planned to retire-including a third of baby boomers-and 54% had different answers on how much they needed to save. “You’d be shocked at the number of married couples who sit down with me, who do not have a consensus on when they want to retire,” says Kristi Sullivan, a financial planner in Denver. You’ve probably chatted about retirement with your family, but have you gotten down to the brass tacks-and do you know what your significant other wants, if you’re part of a couple? When do you both hope to retire, and will you do so at the same time? What will retirement will look like? Lots of travel? Volunteering? Moving? A part-time job?
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