Key Takeaways
- A retirement income plan can be created much like a budget, but to predict your spending needs over a long period of time.
- Your retirement can come from a wide range of sources and will differ by person, so it’s important to account for the full picture.
- Many financial factors are subject to change over time, such as tax liability, inflation, and investment returns, and outside the bounds of the model.
- If you know how much income you’ll have over time, you can better prepare for both planned spending as well as unforeseen expenses.
Make a template
Start your retirement income plan with one quarrel for each calendar year, with your respective old age ( and if married spouse ’ south old age ) listed adjacent to each calendar year. Extend this projection through life anticipation. You can see a sample retirement income plan on the table at the bottom of this article.
Make column headings for each detail you will add to it. Use the list below to determine what items to add .
list Fixed Sources of Retirement Income
Add column for each reservoir of pay back income such as :
Your Social security
Show the sum starting in the year/age you plan to begin benefits and continue this life anticipation. In the sample at the bottom of the page you see at their historic period 66 there is half a year of Social Security, as this person plans to start on their 66th birthday which is in the middle of the class .
Your Spouse ’ s Social Security
Show the sum starting in the year/age your spouse will begin benefits and continue it through their life anticipation. If there is an age or health deviation between the two of you keep in thinker that upon the first death, the surviving spouse keeps the larger of their own Social Security or their spouse ‘s. This means if one spouse has a short life anticipation, your retirement income timeline would only include the larger Social Security amount after the expect longevity of the other spouse had been reached .
Your pension ( s )
Show the total starting in the year/age you plan to take it. A separate column is used for each source of pension income .
In some cases, the funds from retirement accounts, pensions, and Social Security benefits change based on when you choose to start the distributions. Check with your plan adviser, or the SSA web site for rules that apply to you .
Your Spouse ’ sulfur Pension ( south )
Show the sum starting in the year/age you plan to take it. A disjoined column is used for each source of pension income. If married, make certain you account for the pension survivor option that was chosen .
Annuity Income
input this merely if you have an annuity that will pay you a guaranteed minimal amount starting at a specific age or date, with the payment continuing for life, joint animation, or for a set period of clock .
Earnings
If you plan on working half-time, remark earnings for the years you plan to work. Do n’t forget, if you take social Security before full retirement age and have earnings in excess of the earnings limit, your Social Security will be reduced, so you may need to reduce what is in the Social Security column based on your expected earnings .
other
Input any other fixed or regular sources of income such as rental income or alimony .
One Time Sources of Income
Input expected collocate sums, such as animation indemnity proceeds, an inheritance or net income proceeds from the sale of a piece of property.
Do not input investment income sources such as dividends, interest, or capital gains. rather, you will use your retirement income design to calculate how much you will need to withdraw from your fiscal accounts .
When it comes to withdrawals, check out the 1,000-Bucks-a-Month principle to reverse-engineer how much you need to save for retirement .
Add Expenses, Including Taxes
next, estimate your total annual animation expenses. list items such as a mortgage that may be paid off in a few years in a discriminate column. In the exemplar at the bottom of the page, you see the mortgage will be paid off halfway through 2025, so that year the sum annual mortgage payment is half what it was the class before, and then that expense goes away .
tax rates will vary depending on your sum income and deductions. It is best to do tax planning each year to accurately project this. In the case I am using, this person only has IRA savings. Any withdrawal they must take will have to come from their IRA and will be taxable income .
They worked with their tax planner, and used their retirement income timeline, to estimate that they would need a gross $ 35,000 IRA withdrawal at their age 66, which is their first planned year of retirement. Of that withdrawal, about $ 3,100 will go to taxes .
The keep up class they will have more Social Security income and estimated they would lone need about a $ 15,000 IRA withdrawal. Their tax planner estimated their tax liability would be about $ 3,300 that class. They used that number for the remainder of their expulsion .
Calculate the Gap
future, your retirement income design should calculate the break, which is a deficit to be withdrawn from savings, or a excess available to be deposited to savings .
In our case add up income sources ( Social Security plus pension ), then subtract expenses ( living expenses, mortgage, and estimated taxes ) to get to the – $ 34,693 shown in the beginning quarrel under the column labeled “ Gap ” .
- If this “Gap” is a negative number, this is what you would need to withdraw from savings and investments to have your desired retirement lifestyle.
- If the “Gap” is a surplus then you have enough fixed sources of income to meet your desired retirement lifestyle and could add to savings or possibly spend a little more.
This simplistic retirement income plan does not account for ostentation or investment returns, but it gives you a starting position ; a year-by-year draft of where your retirement income may come from.
| Age | Year | Social Security | Pension | Living Expenses | Mortgage | Taxes | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 66 | 2016 | $14,535 | $9,216 | $42,000 | $13,344 | $3,100 | -$34,693 |
| 67 | 2017 | 29,651 | 9,216 | 42,000 | 13,344 | 3,300 | -19,777 |
| 68 | 2018 | 29,651 | 9,216 | 42,000 | 13,344 | 3,300 | -19,777 |
| 69 | 2019 | 29,651 | 9,216 | 42,000 | 13,344 | 3,300 | -19,777 |
| 70 | 2020 | 29,651 | 9,216 | 42,000 | 13,344 | 3,300 | -19,777 |
| 71 | 2021 | 29,651 | 9,216 | 42,000 | 13,344 | 3,300 | -19,777 |
| 72 | 2022 | 29,651 | 9,216 | 42,000 | 13,344 | 3,300 | -19,777 |
| 73 | 2023 | 29,651 | 9,216 | 42,000 | 13,344 | 3,300 | -19,777 |
| 74 | 2024 | 29,651 | 9,216 | 42,000 | 13,344 | 3,300 | -19,777 |
| 75 | 2025 | 29,651 | 9,216 | 42,000 | 6,672 | 3,300 | -13,105 |
| 76 | 2026 | 29,651 | 9,216 | 42,000 | 0 | 3,300 | -6,433 |
| 77 | 2027 | 29,651 | 9,216 | 42,000 | 0 | 3,300 | -6,433 |
| 78 | 2028 | 29,651 | 9,216 | 42,000 | 0 | 3,300 | -6,433 |
| 79 | 2029 | 29,651 | 9,216 | 42,000 | 0 | 3,300 | -6,433 |
| 80 | 2030 | 29,651 | 9,216 | 42,000 | 0 | 3,300 | -6,433 |
| 81 | 2031 | 29,651 | 9,216 | 42,000 | 0 | 3,300 | -6,433 |
| 82 | 2032 | 29,651 | 9,216 | 42,000 | 0 | 3,300 | -6,433 |
| 83 | 2033 | 29,651 | 9,216 | 42,000 | 0 | 3,300 | -6,433 |
| 84 | 2034 | 29,651 | 9,216 | 42,000 | 0 | 3,300 | -6,433 |
| 85 | 2035 | 29,651 | 9,216 | 42,000 | 0 | 3,300 | -6,433 |
| 86 | 2036 | 29,651 | 9,216 | 42,000 | 0 | 3,300 | -6,433 |
Sample Retirement Income Timeline
once you have this design of projected withdrawals you can use it to create an investment design that is customized to when you will actually need to use your money .
