Introduction

Retirement plans and benefits can be started at any time, but planning for retirement works best if you factor your strategy into financial planning as early as possible. Learning about passive income is another way to achieve success. The best way to ensure a secure and safe retirement is to learn. You can being by learning about Vanguard’s Social Security advice and retirement programs here, or TD Ameritrade’s retirement programs here. If you start early and receive quality financial advice, you will reap the rewards from a tailored retirement plan.

1. Introduction
2. What is Retirement planning
   1. Employer Sponsored Retirement Benefits and Plans
3. Key Takeaways
4. Understanding Retirement benefits and Planning
5. How Much Do You Need to Retire?
   1. The Dollar Amount To Retire Comfortably

What is Retirement planning

Retirement planning and benefits involves determining what your income goals are for retirement and how you achieve those goals. Retirement plans include realizing income sources (like passive income), calculating expenses, implementing a savings routine, and managing assets and risk (usually with a professional’s help, learn more about professional management done right here). Realistic ideas about future cash flows are important to estimate possible retirement income goals. With a financial professionals help, your retirement and personal finance goals are easily reachable.

Employer Sponsored Retirement Benefits and Plans

Employer-sponsored savings plans such as a Roth 401(k) or a 401(k) plans provide employees and the employed with a no extra cost way to save for retirement while also benefiting from tax breaks. Also, the reward to employees who participate in employer-sponsored retirement plans is often employer matching contributions. Furthermore, this means for nearly ever dollar you save, your employer will double that savings automatically. Due to the rising cost of healthcare services, group health plans and social security benefits are usually an added benefit for employees who benefit from lower costs. ^[2]

Key Takeaways

• The best time to start retirement planning is now, it is never too late.
• Retirement planning refers to the personal finance strategy of savings, investing, tax guidance, and ultimately accumulating money wisely to retire comfortable. ^[1]
• Passive income is one way you can retire comfortable and generate income passively for years to come.
• Many popular retirement strategies include individual retirement accounts and 401(k)s, which allow anyone to grow savings and wealth with tax advantages.
• Some retirement vehicles allow you to grow savings and investments tax free, or include employer-sponsored retirement plans (employer matches your savings). Learn more about Vanguard’s retirement plans here.
• Retirement planning takes into account many factors, including assets and income, and also future expenses, liabilities, and cost-of-living.
• If you are under 50, you can contribute a maximum of $20,500 to a 401(k). Learn more about Fidelity’s 401(k) plans here.

Understanding Retirement benefits and Planning

Retirement planning, in a simple sense, is what one does to be prepared for life after paid work ends. Also, this isn’t just financially but in all aspects of life, including personal finance and saving.

The non-financial aspects of retirement planning and benefits include lifestyle choices such as how you want to spend retirement, where you want to live in retirement, and when you want to retire and reap the benefits of saving, among other factors. As well, a good all-around approach to retirement planning considers all these aspects.

The priority one puts on retirement planning and benefits changes at different stages in you life.

For instance, early in a person’s working life, retirement planning is about setting aside savings of money for retirement.

During the middle of your working career, you might consider setting specific asset and income targets, including passive income, and taking steps to achieve your tailored financial goals.

As well, once you reach retirement age, you go from accumulating assets to what financial planners call distribution phase. You may no longer pay into a retirement account, but rather you may reap the rewards of social security and realize your decades of savings as they pay out. ^[3]

Some retirement plans change depending on where you are. For instance, the United States and Canada each have unique workplace-sponsored retirement plans.

How Much Do You Need to Retire?

Remember that retirement benefits and planning starts long before you actually retire. Regardless, the best time to learn about retirement benefits is right now. The general rule of investing and saving is the sooner you start, the better. Your tailored personal finance goals and retirement plans, the amount you need for a comfortable retirement, is highly personal to you.

The Dollar Amount To Retire Comfortably

A good rule of thumb is about a total savings of around $1 million to $2 million to retire comfortably. Other financial professionals use the 80% rule, which states that you need enough to live on 80% of your annually income at retirement. For example, if you made $100k, the you would need savings that produce $80k per year for about 20 years, or $1.6 million, including retirement assets. There are many routes you can take to figure savings, income, and retirement benefits.