We all hear people use the term “When I retire” as they think about the future, but it is important to understand the fact that retirement is not a given. It is not some sort of parallel universe that you simply walk into when you reach a certain age. “Retirement” is simply a word describing the act of discontinuing your working career. But there are no guarantees that you’ll ever be financially capable of doing this.
There was a poll conducted recently by AP-LifeGoesStrong.com that picked the brains of baby boomers who were approaching what would typically be retirement age. One fourth of the poll respondents stated that they would never retire. About two thirds of them said that they would continue working at least part-time after retirement, and 35% of these people said that they would do so out of financial need.
It is important to understand the fact that Social Security is probably not going to provide you with enough income to live on comfortably. When people find this out too late they wind up working for the rest of their lives. According to statistics provided by the Social Security Administration, at the present time the average monthly benefit is about $1,072. This is something to keep in mind, and even if your benefit is higher than the average we are talking about a relatively modest amount of money.
Plus, if you have been following the news at all over the last year you know that there’s a lot of impetus toward making cuts in Social Security and Medicare in an effort to reduce the federal deficit. One of the simplest ways of doing this would be to raise the age at which you become eligible to receive Social Security and Medicare benefits. This is something to keep an eye on as the debates surrounding the topic move forward.
The only way that most people are going to be ready to retire on their own terms is by developing a solid retirement plan and sticking to it over an extended period of time. The best way to go about doing this is with the assistance of a savvy retirement planning attorney.
Paul A. Kraft, Estate Planning Attorney
Mr. Kraft assists clients primarily in the areas of estate planning and administration, Medicaid planning, federal and state taxation, real estate and corporate law, bringing the added perspective of an accounting background to his work.
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