baby boomers

How Much of a Nest Egg Is Enough to Retire Comfortably?

a couple at the restaurant in Spain-to retire comfortably

Most people don’t have any idea how much they are going to need in retirement. It is an important question because your life changes the day you retire. You no longer have a salary that will pay your bills, and suddenly you are on your own.

At this point, you must know if what you have saved will be enough to live comfortably for the next 20 or 30 years. If the nest egg you have accumulated is too small, you might outlive your money.

When you calculate how much you need for retirement, you should match your retirement income to your expenses. For most people, it is easy to calculate retirement income especially for Social Security benefits. While it is harder to estimate your future expenses because expenses will vary depending on your lifestyle.

Until you have a good idea of what your retirement expenses will be and how they match to income, you cannot get a real number of how much nest egg you need for a comfortable retirement.

This article will help you get a better idea of how to calculate your nest egg so you can retire comfortably.

Step 1. Income

Do you know how much you have accumulated in savings and investments to quit your job and live a comfortable retirement?

Unfortunately, people tend to have a vague idea about their retirement income sources and overestimate how long their savings last.

The main sources of your retirement income will be:

Social Security. It is a proven fact that for many people Social Security is the main source of income in retirement. The average Social Security benefit in 2022 was only $1,550. Most people would find it tough to live on that paycheck alone.

If you do not know your number, just go to the Social Security Estimator to find out your number depending on the age you start collecting.

Pension. If you are lucky, a pension can be an enormous benefit because it produces predictable income from your employer.

Retirement accounts. Your 401(k), IRA, Roth IRAs, investments, and bank savings will generate income for you depending on how much you have saved.

Employment. If you choose to work in retirement, full or part-time, you can significantly increase your income number. A part-time job can make your retirement more comfortable if you did not save enough money.

Annuity. Many people are less worried about running out of money in retirement if they have a guaranteed lifetime income. You can turn some of your savings into lifetime income with an annuity. When you buy an annuity, you are exchanging a lump sum of money for a guaranteed lifetime income.

Should You Have an Annuity in Your Retirement Plan?

By the time you are 65, it will be hard to affect most of your income sources besides your job income. If your nest egg is small, you can keep working full-time, find a part-time job, or start a side hustle like Airbnb, blogging, etc.

Step 2. Expenses

Once you calculate your retirement income, you need to estimate your retirement expenses which will typically include fixed and variable expenses.

Look at how you spend your money today. Then take a piece of paper and divide every expense into categories (or buckets) which will allow you to see the big picture. At the end of the month, look at your categories and see how much you spend on each:

Housing (mortgage/rent, maintenance, property tax, property insurance, home improvement)
Utilities (gas, water, electricity)
Vehicle (insurance, maintenance, fuel, car loan)
Food (groceries, dining out)
Healthcare (out-of-pocket expenses, dental, eye exams, and glasses)
Insurance (health, life, liability)
Personal (clothes, education, personal debt, gym membership)
Entertainment (travel, cable, internet, books, memberships)

Keep in mind that your expenses will change in retirement. You have probably heard that you should plan to live on just 80% of your current spending after you stop working. But writing every expense now will help you have a better idea of what you will need in retirement and what you can cut out.

Once you know your sources of income and expenses, you can determine your nest egg number. The final number will be different for everyone. It depends on how old you are when you retire, how long you will live, and how well your investment portfolio will perform.

However, people tend to underestimate how long they live and what their medical costs will be. Also, people forget about unexpected expenses like car repairs, roof and furnace replacements, or financial help to family members.

Step 3. Compare your retirement income to expenses.

You have to have a good idea of what your retirement expenses will be and how they compare to your retirement income.

Consider yourself lucky if your retirement income sources are enough to cover your expenses when you stop working.

Unfortunately, most people’s income sources do not bring it enough to cover their retirement expenses.

Even though many expenses go down in retirement, inflation makes life more expensive for retirees. For most of us, the nest egg number has to be big enough to bring enough income otherwise we need to reduce our spending or adjust our retirement lifestyle.

If your current expenses are less than your income you have enough to retire. But if you do not, you need to figure out how to cover the gap.

For example, after calculating your Social Security, (pension if you are lucky) and a part-time job, your retirement income equals $35,000 a year. Your estimated retirement living expenses are $42,000 per year.

$42,000 – $35,000 = $7.000

The difference is a negative $7,000. This means that you need an additional $7,000 per year to maintain your retirement lifestyle.

How to cover this gap? The withdrawals from your nest egg should cover this shortfall. If you use the popular 4% withdrawal rule, you need to have at least $175,000 in retirement savings to cover the gap.

$175,000 x 0.04 = $7,000 a year

Step 4. How much is your nest egg?

How much of a nest egg you need in retirement depends on several factors.

The biggest factor is how much of your retirement income needs to come from that egg. If you have Social Security and a pension, your nest egg will be only used for additional income and big expenses.

But without a pension from your employer, Social Security will provide only a basic level of income. So, your nest egg (retirement savings) would be another source of income.

Ideally, Social Security and other guaranteed income sources should cover basic living expenses. And withdrawals from the nest egg should create enough cash flow to cover your other expenses.

A good starting point for many retirees and pre-retirees will be a well-known rule of thumb – the “4% rule”. According to experts, no matter how much you have saved, a 4% withdrawal rate will let you take money out of your nest egg for 30 years without fear of running out of money.

For example, if you want to get $20,000 per year from your nest egg, the account should be worth at least $500,000 when you retire.

$500,000 x 0.04 = $20,000 a year (1,666 per month)

Luckily, there are a lot of things you can do to fill that gap.

Step 5. Lifestyle

The lifestyle you plan to live will determine how much you need in retirement.

How expensive is your lifestyle? If you are planning to live in an expensive area, have a vacation home, drive nice cars and travel a lot – you will need more than $1 million saved.

But you can live comfortably with almost any budget if you match your expenses to your income. As I said before, it is hard to control income but there are many things you can do to lower your expenses.

Housing will be your biggest budget item. Housing costs as a percentage of spending will remain around 35% on average.

It is important to decide where you are going to live in retirement. If you plan to stay put and “age in place”, you should figure out how much it would cost to make your home senior-friendly. You should think about the costs of remodeling the kitchen, bathroom and stairs, and even maybe moving a master bedroom to the 1^st floor.

Aging Friendly Improvements for Every Home Remodeling Project

Also, if your housing expenses are too high you can downsize, sell your house, and rent, or move to a less expensive state.

If you are thinking of downsizing in the next few years, be realistic about what it will cost to buy something else and how much you will get for the sale of your house. Moving expenses and any kind of renovations big or small like new carpets at your new house will take money out of your nest egg.

Start watching real estate listings to get a sense of the market. If you are going to sell your home, start getting it ready for the market to avoid the last-minute rush.

Also, take time to think through what you really want your retirement to be. Do you want a small place where you can stay for up to 6 months and then travel for the rest of the year (my kind of dream scenario)? Would you rather have a bigger house for all of the family gatherings and for your kids and grandkids to visit?

You also need to plan for the unexpected. Many events typically come out of the blue. For example, you might have to start supporting a parent or a child, or some medical procedure needs to be covered out-of-pocket.

How Much a Nest Egg Is Enough to Retire Comfortably?

The answer is it all depends on your age, your goals, and your dreams.

The truth is that nobody can predict the future. If you want to retire in your 50s you will need to have a nest egg saved much bigger than if you want to retire in your 60s. And if you’re waiting to retire at 70, your number will be even smaller.

Look at your numbers, calculate your current cost of living and create a spending plan for the future. Then compare it to your retirement income based on different retirement age scenarios. It might take some time and hard work to get there. But knowing that you have enough money to live the life of your dream is incredibly satisfying.

Have you saved enough for a comfortable retirement?

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2023 New Year’s Resolutions for Baby Boomers

by Maggie Leave a Comment

Happy New Year 2023!

Each new year offers a great opportunity for a fresh start and new beginnings. Setting resolutions is a long-standing tradition. However, only about 10% of people achieve their New Year’s resolutions each year. And many people stop working towards their resolutions after just the first two weeks.

When it comes to finances, 2022 was a challenging year. With high inflation, rising prices on everything, and volatile stock markets ‘2022 was the sixth-most volatile year since the Great Depression’.

Almost 81% of Americans are concerned about their financial New Year’s resolutions and believe that inflation makes it harder to meet their goals.

But making New Year’s resolutions is a great way to change your life for the better. The new year can be a great time to think about what is possible in your near future. Also, the new year is a great time to set some good financial goals. But make sure to set some small realistic goals that will help you work towards larger goals.

Even though we all like to set up new goals and resolutions, different generations have different goals for the new year.

If you are a baby boomer, here are my tips and advice to help you make your 2023 New Year’s resolutions.

1. Eliminate any debts.

Why is it so important to reduce or eliminate debt?

Debt is always a slippery slope because the interest will eat massive chunks of your spending money. The faster you can get rid of it, the faster you can get ahead.

That is why the beginning of the year is a great time to sit down and create a debt payment plan.

There are two strategic and popular methods to get out of debt faster. The Avalanche method helps to reduce the debt that carries the highest interest rate. The Snowball method helps to get rid of debt with the lowest balance first, and then move on to the next lowest one.

The way the snowball approach works is you arrange all of your debts from largest to small ones. Pay off your smallest debt first. Then once the smallest debt is paid off, the money you were paying toward it will be applied to your next smallest debt.

With the avalanche approach, you will start paying off the debt with the highest interest rate and then move to the next highest.

How to Pay Off Debt Before You Retire

Goals to get out of debt:

Identify what debt to pay first.
Set up a debt payment plan.
Consider reducing other expenses to pay debt faster.

2. Increase retirement savings.

Sometimes we do not realize how expensive it will be to retire.

Building a nest egg that allows for retirement income to be close to 100% of pre-retirement income is a hard financial task. Unfortunately, very few people are confident in their retirement savings goals. Most people do not have the proper number in mind, and they forget the impact of inflation on their savings.

In terms of total retirement savings, retirees need to be able to live on no more than a 4% annual withdrawal from their retirement assets. You are not ready to retire if you have minimal savings. Social Security is generally not enough for a comfortable retirement. You will need to keep working and saving more money.

When you are a few years away from retirement, being short on retirement savings can be problematic. The best option is to start reducing your expenses, so you can put more money into your retirement savings.

Goals to help you save:

Set a monthly savings goal.
Analyze your budget to see how much you can save.
Reduce your spending in a specific category each month.
Save a portion of your paycheck each month.
Increase your contributions to retirement plans – 401(k), IRA, Roth IRA.

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3. Save more for emergencies.

One of the biggest worries about money among baby boomers is that you do not know what will happen in the future.

You do not know if it would be enough to maintain your lifestyle in retirement and if you would not run out of money later when you are in your 80s or 90s.

When you retire, you do not have the security of your job to rely on and have to live on a fixed income. While you cannot exactly plan for the unknown, you can create a backup plan for emergencies.

In general, every household needs an emergency fund to cover unexpected expenses and it should be between 3 to 6 months of household income. But for retirees (in an ideal world) 1 to 3 years of living expenses should be set aside in cash.

Even though your emergency fund cannot cover everything, it can still reduce the money you have to borrow from your family or use credit cards and increase your debt.

The beginning of the year is a great time to put aside extra money into your emergency fund.

Goals for an emergency fund:

Figure out how much you need in your emergency fund.
Create a separate account (money market account, bank savings account, certificate of deposit.
Set up automatic transfers to your emergency fund each month.

4. Create a retirement budget.

Creating a retirement budget, along with a strategy of how you will draw money from your retirement funds is an excellent New Year’s resolution for many baby boomers.

Start by setting up a budget using the amount of money you will have when you retire plus a Social Security paycheck. Do not forget the emergency expenses like home maintenance, car repairs, and medical bills. See if you can live on that budget.

If you cannot, you need to come up with another plan. Think about downsizing if you are a homeowner or relocating to a more affordable area so you can put that extra money into retirement savings.

Think about how much you want to save and how much to spend in 2023. Sticking to your budget can help to know where your money is going. If you want to save more money for your upcoming retirement, begin eliminating some expenses that may not be important to you anymore.

When you retire, you do not need a lot of things that you did when you were working. The costs of commute, take-out lunches and business clothes will go down. On the other hand, you will start spending more money on travel, hobbies, and activities.

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Goals for retirement budget:

Identify your potential retirement income.
Calculate your future retirement expenses by looking at your current costs of living.
Budget with your spouse or partner.
Calculate your net worth.

5. Reduce your expenses.

One of the simplest parts of your financial life to control is spending.

The beginning of the year is a great time to look at your personal spending and set up new goals. 2022 has been full of change and adjustment with many people preferred to work remote. There is a good chance that your spending habits have changed as well.

How did you do last year? Did you get a full picture of your finances and know how much money you have saved (or not) in 2022?

If you struggled last year, decide how to improve your financial situation in 2023.

Look at your credit card and bank statements and see what expenses could be avoided last year, and plan to cut them this year.

Keep in mind, that balancing your income with your spending is the key to saving more money for retirement.

Goals for reducing your expenses before retirement:

Find ways to reduce transportation costs.
Pay off your mortgage or reduce housing costs by downsizing.
Eliminate high-interest debt – credit cards, personal loans, student loans.
Evaluate your insurance coverage.
Figure out where you will live in retirement.

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6. Manage your overall stress and focus on happiness.

We all know that financial stress is not good for our health. Financial anxiety negatively impacts not only our health, but our mood, home and social life, marriage, and ability to pursue our dreams and passions.

Unfortunately, in the current economic climate, it is unlikely that our financial difficulties will disappear overnight. However, it does not mean we have to give up. Perhaps, we need to take small steps to ease our stress levels and focus on happiness and not money.

Everyone’s dream is to have a happy family and be financially secure. So, if you want to be happy and have a secure retirement, try to:

Stop accumulating stuff – Spending money on accumulating stuff does not bring happiness and might put you in debt. Downsize and de-clutter your home, so you can spend more time enjoying your life rather than maintaining it.

Think about experiences – It is a proven fact that you are happier when you spend your money on experiences than on stuff. Accumulating more stuff does not make you happy but doing interesting things do.

Focus on your priorities – Know what is important to you and stop worrying about the rest.

Express gratitude – Be grateful for the good things in your life. It is easy to focus all your attention on the negatives when you are overwhelmed by financial uncertainty and money worries. While you do not have to ignore reality, you can be grateful for many small things in your life. Take a moment to appreciate the beauty of the sunset, flowers in your garden, a gorgeous sunny day, or just a good book.

Find ways to be kind and to help others. These efforts help you see beyond your own financial problems to give something back to the world.

Have you thought about your 2023 resolutions yet? Do you have any financial goals?

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Baby Boomers: How to Prepare for Retirement?

by Maggie 2 Comments

boomer woman laying on top of the car surrounded by palm trees

If you are a baby boomer, your retirement planning shouldn’t be complicated. You don’t need to have a degree in finance. There are a few simple steps needs to be done in your early working years and the rest you can figure out in the years before retirement.

When you are in your 20’s, finally out of school and start making money, your first financial goal is to save money. At that age, your priorities don’t include reading books about retirement planning. But we all know that if you don’t start on that road early it will get harder with each passing year.

Retirement looks like a distant future even in our 40’s. For many years my retirement goals were mostly vague because there were so many years ahead of my life.

But after I turned 50, everything has changed. I started to feel that the distant future begins itching much closer with every day. I know that many people get serious about planning for their retirement when they reach their 50’s. At this point in your life, you started to understand that you need to be more realistic about what lies ahead of you.

As baby boomers, we need to start preparing ourselves and our finances for the transitioning from the “far away retirement’ to the ‘around the corner”.

If you are a baby boomer, I want to share several steps you need to take to help you prepare for retirement:

Step 1. Start with your dreams

boomer woman hiking with camera among tall grass

When you are in 5 to 10 years before retirement it’s crucial to decide what exactly you want to do in retirement. Your retirement is not far away anymore, it’s rather very close. The more details you can put into imagining the days of your retirement, the better job you will do preparing for that life. It’s important to decide first what your retirement dreams are, then you can move on making it happen.

Some people dreaming about traveling the world or buying a boat. Others are all about living close to the family, gardening, and volunteering. It’s important to remember that you can’t plan retirement without knowing what you want to do in it. I think it’s time to discover your passion. You’ll need to dig deep inside yourself to determine what excites you. You’ll have to have a reason to get out of bed every day.

Imagine in detail how would you spend your days when you stop working:

What would be your daily routine?
Are you planning to keep working part-time?
Do you have any hobbies?

Did you think about where would you live? Are you planning to relocate to a different city or state? Do you want to live closer to your family or your friends?

How active are you? Are you healthy? What are you doing to stay healthy?

Answering these questions is important because it will help you to figure out how much your retirement will cost.

Step 2. Move from your dreams to your goals

The next step is to figure out what do you need to do to make your dreams come true.

Once you wrote down the list of your dreams, you can start working on your goals. Dreaming about retirement is not enough, you need to know if you have enough cash to support your lifestyle without regular employer paycheck.

Start by estimating how much money do you need to support the lifestyle of your dreams. Where you live and what you prefer to do will determine the cost of retirement.

Have you saved enough for retirement?
How many years you have to have to achieve these goals?

If you haven’t done any retirement estimates yet, I would recommend start playing with online retirement calculators. The online calculators will help you to see how much income you will have in retirement based on your current savings and investments. You can play around with decisions like your retirement date, the rate of return on your investments, rate of inflation and see how these things will affect your future income.

However, most online retirement calculators will give you only a broad overview of your retirement plan, because they are based on future expectations.

MaxiFi Basic Retirement Calculator

AARP Retirement Planning Calculator

Don’t forget to include your Social Security benefits into retirement income calculations. It’s true that for most of the baby boomers the best strategy for maximizing our Social Security benefits is to wait until age 70. This usually results in tens of thousands more in lifetime income than retire at age 62.

Unfortunately, to follow this rule is not always happen in real life. Everyone has their own set of circumstances. But I would recommend looking at your Social Security benefits and see how the retirement age will affect your future income.

Step 3. Create action steps to make your goals happen

a hand holding a magnifying lens - retirement plans

Be clear on your goals.

My goal is to retire at 67 and be able to spend $50,000 per year during retirement. Roman and I like to travel, and we want to spend our time traveling to the places we have on our retirement bucket list. Spending $50,000 while traveling the world might not be a realistic goal because we still need to pay our bills. But I like to dream a little. We can always change things later and modify our plan based on our retirement income.

If you are in the process of creating your detailed retirement plan, first you need to know how much it will cost you to live once you retire.

There are several options to calculate that number:

The most popular rule of thumb is to calculate a ballpark number. The estimate is often called “multiply by 25 rule”. This rule works as a guide to how much you should save before you retire. So, to determine how much money you’ll need in retirement, multiply your desired annual income by 25.

For example, you plan on withdrawing $30,000 from your retirement savings each year.

$30,000 x 25 = $750,000 – you need to have in your retirement savings

If you plan on withdrawing $50,000 from your retirement savings each year you will need to save:

$50,000 x 25 = 1.25 million

But keep in mind that this rule doesn’t’ factor in other sources of your retirement income like Social Security, pension or rental income.

The cost of living number: use your cost of living now (your current spending) and calculate 70% as for your future spending. So, if you are earning $100,000 a year, you should plan on living on roughly $70,000 a year to keep the same lifestyle. Statistics show that we will spend less money when we retire.

Once you go through all these calculations you may discover that you don’t have enough money saved to achieve your goals.

What to do?

The first step will be to increase your savings. How much do you save in your retirement accounts? Saving 10% might not be enough if you are 5 to 10 years away from retirement. You need to increase your savings by at least 20%.

If saving more money is not an option, the next step will be to start looking at your spending and see if you can spend less. Most people believe that saving and investing are the most important steps while preparing for retirement. However, your spending plan will determine if you are going to have a happy retirement. Think about it. You can make $75,000 a year in retirement, but if you spend $150,000, you are not going to stay retired too long.

Step 4. Look for downsizing opportunities

small town houses covered with snow - downsizing in retirement

Downsizing can be a very scary word. Many people think that having fewer things means letting the world know that you can’t afford the “big life”. Home-ownership is special. We are emotionally connected to our home. However, our homes come with huge financial responsibilities. You have to pay for your mortgage and home insurance. You have to heat it in winter and cool it in summer. Home repairs, renovations, and yard work require money.

Is it time to downsize your home? If your kids off to college or grown and out of the house maybe you have more space than you need. Downsizing could be a positive thing if you move to a smaller home with less of a financial burden.

If you paid off your mortgage and own your home, you might consider renting it and moving to a condo or a smaller home in another part of the city or town. Being a landlord is not an easy task, but you can use rent as an additional source of income in retirement.

When you are moving to a smaller space, it’s always best to sell what you can’t take with you than to rent storage space. I have heard about many people who still pay for their storage units but haven’t open them for years. Don’t waste your hard-earned money on stuff you don’t need anymore.

Downsizing your transportation might be another way of finding more money in your pocket. If a sizeable chunk of your income goes into maintaining several cars or driving a luxury car, I would suggest downsizing or choose a different car so that you can save and invest more.

Many people choose to lease their cars because they want a new car every few years. Buying a good used car, rather than a new one for their image is always a good option. When you think about, the cost of buying would be less expensive than leasing it for the long run. Also, a car is considered as a depreciating asset and loses its value faster than you imagine.

Roman and I have discussed our downsizing opportunities and planning to sell our house and move to a smaller one, preferably condo. We also want to downsize from two cars to one. All these actions will save us a lot of money and eventually will allow us to spend more in retirement on our dream lifestyle.

Step 5. Take care of your health & review your healthcare options

different kind of fruits-healthy retirement

Think about how big and small choices related to your health now will determine options for your future. What you eat, how you exercise or exercise at all, and other healthy choices will impact who you are in 10 or 20 years.

I have read many articles showing that baby boomers are in serious denial when it comes to their medical and long-term care costs. Yes, Medicare provides health insurance, but it doesn’t pay for all medical costs and it doesn’t’ pay for long-term supports and services at all. Many believe that they will only need about $50,000 to pay for their health care in retirement. Sadly, they are wrong.

We all know that medical insurance is essential even it can be expensive. A sudden medical emergency or serious illness can wipe out your savings. According to Fidelity’s new studies a 65-year old couple retiring in 2019 can expect to spend $285,000 in health care and medical expenses throughout retirement.

If you are not active or eat poorly, now is the time to build healthy habits. Being active, exercising and eating right can add more years to your life. Visit your doctor, get regular checkups and screenings so that if any problems get caught early you can do something about them. Taking care of your health now is important so you can live a long, healthy and happy life in retirement.

Putting it all together

There are many things to consider when you start working on your personal retirement plan. I read all the time about financial surveys indicating that many baby boomers are short on their retirement savings or lack any kind of planning for retirement.

Don’t be that person. Take the time for these 5 steps so you’ll be on your way to generating a solid retirement plan and feel ready for the retirement of your dreams.

Do you have a list of your retirement goals? Did you work on your retirement plan? Do you feel ready for retirement?