If you didn't make saving for retirement a priority early in life, it's not too late to catch up. At age 50, you can start making extra contributions to your tax-sheltered retirement accounts (called catch-up contributions).
But they may not have enough saved up to do so comfortably. By the time you turn 50, you should aim to have around six times your salary saved for retirement, according to Fidelity. So, if you earn $100,000, for example, ideally you should have around $600,000 sitting in your retirement savings account.
But if you want to retire as soon as 52, you need a solid strategy to help you get there. Retiring in your 50s leaves you with less time than the average worker, making it a challenge. Despite this, it's not impossible. The crux of your plan should come down to saving, managing money efficiently and investing wisely.
One example is the $1,000/month rule. Created by Wes Moss, a Certified Financial Planner, this strategy helps individuals visualize how much savings they should have in retirement. According to Moss, you should plan to have $240,000 saved for every $1,000 of disposable income in retirement.
By age 50, you should have six times your salary in an account. By age 60, you should have eight times your salary working for you. By age 67, your total savings total goal is 10 times the amount of your current annual salary. So, for example, if you're earning $75,000 per year, you should have $750,000 saved.
Your full retirement age is 67. Taking benefits before your full retirement age (as early as age 62) lowers the amount you get each month for the rest of your life. Delaying benefits past your full retirement age (up to age 70) increases the monthly amount for the rest of your life.
By age 50, you would be considered on track if you have three to six times your preretirement gross income saved. And by age 60, you should have 5.5 to 11 times your salary saved in order to be considered on track for retirement.
According to the Life Insurance And Market Research Association (LIMRA), 69% of Americans retire by age 66. Roughly 51% retire between the ages of 61 and 65. By age 75, 89% of Americans have left the labor force. It surprises me that less than 1% of Americans retire before age 50.
If you retire with no money, you'll have to consider ways to create income to pay your living expenses. That might include applying for Social Security retirement benefits, getting a reverse mortgage if you own a home, or starting a side hustle or part-time job to generate a steady paycheck.
To start saving for retirement at 50 and beyond, adjust expectations, create a retirement budget, prioritize retirement savings with employer-sponsored plans and IRAs, utilize a Health Savings Account, and manage debt carefully.
It is never really too late for you to increase savings and plan for retirement, unless you have already retired. Here are five ways to step up your retirement savings today.
According to the Federal Reserve, the average 401(k) balance is around $30,000 for those under 35, around $132,000 for those ages 35–44, around $255,000 for those ages 45–54, around $408,000 for those ages 55–64, and around $426,000 for those ages 65–75.
With $400,000, if you buy an annuity at age 62 and then retire, you might expect monthly payments of around $2,400 for the rest of your life. This comes to about $28,800 per year in guaranteed income according to one estimate.
In most cases, you will have to wait until age 66 and four months to collect enough Social Security for a stable retirement. If you want to retire early, you will have to find a way to replace your income during that six-year period. In most cases $300,000 is simply not enough money on which to retire early.
If you have more than $1 million saved in retirement accounts, you are in the top 3% of retirees. According to EBRI estimates based on the latest Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances, 3.2% of retirees have over $1 million in their retirement accounts, while just 0.1% have $5 million or more.
If you've worked and paid Social Security taxes for 10 years or more, you'll get a monthly benefit based on that work.
The Social Security disability five-year rule allows people to skip a required waiting period for receiving disability benefits if they had previously received disability benefits, stopped collecting those benefits and then became unable to work again within five years.
You must be at least 62 for the entire month to receive benefits. Percentages are approximate due to rounding.
The average retirement savings for all families is $333,940 according to the 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances. Taken on their own, those numbers aren't incredibly helpful. There are a variety of decent retirement savings benchmarks out there, but how much money other people have isn't one of them.
While $40,000 is a good start on the road to building a nest egg, you probably want to retire with a lot more money than that. But it may be more than possible if you commit to saving and investing in a brokerage account consistently for the remainder of your career.
You can begin withdrawing money from your traditional 401(k) without penalty when you turn age 59½. But you still have to pay taxes when you withdraw, because you didn't pay income taxes on it back when you put it in the account.