How to determine if you are ready for retirement

I ran across an article today discussing “early retirement” that got me thinking about the numbers. The gist of the article was that the decision of when to begin receiving Social Security benefits was a personal decision and that the longer you wait the greater the monthly benefits at retirement.

Seems reasonable I suppose…

What struck me as odd was that they defined early retirement as beginning at age 62! I am sure that I have seen it described this way in the past…but today it just struck me differently.

So the concept is this. Retirement age is officially 67 years old as defined by the Social Security Administration. You can retire at any time between the age of 62 and full retirement age (for those of us born in 1960 or later the age is 67), BUT if you start benefits early they are reduced.

It is interesting to note that the retirement age has continued to increase, originally retirement age was 65 and now it has increased to 67.

So, for those of us born in 1964 we can’t start drawing full retirement benefits until we are 67 years old. Any sooner will result in some pretty deep cuts in the benefits available to us.

Well of course I wanted to know when I was going to die, so I could figure out how long I was going to be able to enjoy my retirement.

I found out I can expect to die on March 22, 2037. I am not exactly sure what time, but http://www.deathclock.com/ does provide a countdown in seconds for those interested. So by my calculation I will be 72 years old upon my demise.

Let’s look at the numbers…I die at 72, I begin retirement at 67, by my calculations I will have a happy 5 years in which to enjoy my retirement. Now that is something to look forward to!!

During my research I found that both the Social Security Administration and the “financial experts” agree that if you want more money at retirement the solution is to keep working.

Hold on I will redo the numbers…