The Sixties…Not those
Sixties. It’s a Great Time for Financial Strategizing.
For most
of your adult life, doing wise financial planning is a good idea, but you don’t
always have many options. When you approach your retirement years,
usually starting in your Sixties, there are lots of options and the decisions
that you make will impact the rest of your life:
·
When should you retire or start working less?
·
When and how should you start taking Social
Security?
·
When should you start taking money out of your IRAs
and other retirement plans? Except for Roths, you have to start taking
Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) the year you turn seventy and a
half.
Often these
questions are decided by considering all three together. Sometimes, these
decisions are forced upon you by financial or other circumstances. Your
tax bracket and your proximity to a higher tax bracket factor into this
equation.
It may
make sense to start withdrawing from your retirement accounts after you retire,
but before you apply for Social Security. Delaying when you start SS can
increase your monthly benefits by 32% if you start them at 70 instead of 66,
but if you are in financial need, poor health or if longevity is not a strength
of your family history, starting earlier may make sense.
It is
impossible to generalize here, so if you have some of those decisions on your
near horizon, you might consider stopping in for an hourly consultation with
me. Cost is $150 per hour, no minimum time required. Normally a one
to two hour consultation should help put your options into perspective.