What is the Real Retirement Age?

What is the real retirement age?

Depending on your age, if you’re currently in the workforce your Social Security retirement age is between 65 to 67 years of age.

That’s when you’ll be eligible for full retirement benefits.

However, that doesn’t mean you need to wait until then before you can retire.

Many people have a hard time separating the age they are eligible for Social Security benefits with when they will retire.

You need to remember that the two are not connected at all.

In actuality, your retirement age is whatever age you happen to be when you decide you’re ready to retire. If you’re relying on Social Security to fund your retirement then you’ll be waiting until you are 65 to 67 years old.

If you’re in a position to pay for your retirement on your own through savings, investments, businesses, real estate, etc then the age you retire can be much younger.

If you decide that the thought of an early retirement is appealing to you, then you should start planning for that day as soon as possible.

Retirement is gong to require real savings. It will take more than simply making monthly contributions to your 401K. While company matching 401K programs are a great asset, you should have other investments and savings that will contribute to your retirement as well.

The sooner you get started with a serious retirement savings plan, the sooner you will be able to walk away from the work force.

In order to reach your retirement age earlier, there are a few things you need to work on: debt reduction, savings, and residual income.

The first step, debt reduction, is fairly straight forward. The more you’re spending paying off past debts, the less money you have to put into your retirement fund. As you pay off those debts, you’ll have more money available each month that you can save and invest.

That leads to step 2, which is working on building your retirement fund. A solid fund is important because people are living longer than ever before. That means your retirement fund will have to last longer than it did in years past.

The last thing you want is to get into your later years only to discover that you’re running out of money.

That leads to the third step in your retirement plan; building a residual income. You need to have money coming in, even after you quit working your regular job.

It’s never too early to start working on building residual income. Investments can make up one stream, but you should have several streams of income that you can live off of rather than tapping into your retirement fund.

If you’re at all computer capable there are ways to set up websites that will provide an ongoing income, even when you’re not actively working. It can be a great way to keep money coming in.

In addition, I recommend that you invest some considerable time learning how to invest in real estate. This market is going to stay down for years to come and you have the opportunity to pick up some serious holdings in real estate.

Network marketing and options trading can also help build more residual income into your portfolio. Let’s face it, with the stock market being manipulated by the elite classes, the chances of your retirement funds or Social Security being there at all in the future are in doubt.

As usual, do your due diligence when investing in any of the above areas…

It’s important to remember that you can control when you retire. Once you have all of the pieces in place and you decide you re ready to step back from the traditional workforce, that is your retirement age.