Retirement Planning

If you are just beginning full-time work, you probably aren’t thinking about retirement. Re-think that. The sooner you start saving, the better off you’ll be. If you contribute to an employer-sponsored plan such as a 401(k), many employers offer a matching contribution. Our retirement planners can evaluate your current and planned savings to see if you are on track to accumulate an adequate retirement account balance.

You should be well underway with saving for retirement. Many financial advisors suggest that workers who are not covered by a defined benefit plan should save 12% to 15% of their salary in a defined contribution plan¹ or other tax-advantaged account such as an Individual Retirement Account (IRA). If the total contributions you and your employer are making are less than 12%, consider increasing how much you contribute by 1% of your salary each year. Many 401(k) plans offer an automatic increase feature, which makes it easy to save more.

You may have a retirement date in mind. Deciding when to retire is one of the biggest financial decisions you will make. Retiring too soon and facing the risk of potentially outliving your money is a frightening proposition. Our retirement planners can help you with this decision by evaluating your projected income and expenses during your retirement years. Will you have enough savings to cover your needs? How long will your money last? Determine how much your projected retirement income and expenses will be during retirement, then schedule an appointment with a retirement planner at an SECU branch. We can help calculate if you are on track to retire by your desired date, or if you need to work a little longer or save more.

Once you retire, we can assist you with estimating how much you can withdraw annually from your personal retirement savings accounts to make your savings last through your projected lifetime. We can also help you analyze your spending to see if you can decrease expenses in order to stretch your money even further.