THE NEW GRADUAL RETIREMENT

The New Gradual Retirement Working a little (or a lot) after 60 may become the norm. Do we really want to retire at 65? Not according to the latest annual retirement survey from the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies which gauges the outlook of American workers. It found that 51% of us plan to work part-time once retired. Moreover, 64% of workers 60 and older wanted to work at least a little after 65 and 18% had no intention of retiring.1     Are financial needs shaping these responses? Not entirely. While 61% of all those polled in the Transamerica survey cited income and employer-sponsored health benefits as major reasons to stay employed in the "third act" of life, 34% of respondents said they wanted to keep working because they enjoy their occupation or like the social and mental engagement of the workplace.1   It seems "retirement" and "work" are no longer mutually exclusive. Not all of us have sufficiently large retirement nest eggs, so we strive to stay employed - to let our savings compound a little more, and to leave us with fewer years of retirement to fund. We want to keep working into our mid-sixties because of two other realities as well. If you are a baby boomer and you retire before age 66 (or 67, in the case of those born 1960 and later), your monthly Social Security benefits will be smaller than if you had worked until full retirement age. Additionally, we can qualify for Medicare at age 65.2,3   We are sometimes cautioned that working too much in retirement may result in our Social Security benefits being taxed - but is there really such a thing as "too much" retirement income? Income aside, there is another question we all face as retirement approaches. How much control will we have over our retirement transition? In the Transamerica survey, 41% of respondents saw themselves making a gradual entry into retirement, shifting from full-time employment to part-time employment or another kind of work in their sixties.1       Is that thinking realistic? It may or may not be. A recent Gallup survey of retirees found that 67% had left the workforce before age 65; just 18% had managed to work longer. Recent research from the Employee Benefit Retirement Institute fielded roughly the same results: 14% of retirees kept working after 65 and about half had been forced to stop working earlier than they planned due to layoffs, health issues or elder care responsibilities.3     If you do want to make a gradual retirement transition, what might help you do it? First of all, work on maintaining your health. The second priority: maintain and enhance your skill set, so that your prospects for employment in your sixties are not reduced by separation from the latest technologies. Keep networking. Think about Plan B: if you are unable to continue working in your chosen career even part-time, what prospects might you have for creating income through financial decisions, self-employment or in other lines of work? How can you reduce your monthly expenses?   Easing out of work & into retirement may be the new normal. Pessimistic analysts contend that many baby boomers will not be able to keep working past 65, no matter their aspirations. They may be wrong - just as this active, ambitious generation has changed America, it may also change the definition of retirement.   Sources: 1 - forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2015/05/05/why-the-new-retirement-involves-working-past-65/ [5/5/15] 2 - ssa.gov/retire2/agereduction.htm [6/11/15] 3 - money.usnews.com/money/blogs/planning-to-retire/2015/05/22/how-to-pick-the-optimal-retirement-age [5/22/15]

Sincerely, Bill Morrissey, CFP® and Tammy Prouty, CFP® Sound Financial Planning, Inc. Primary Office 425 Commercial St., Ste 203 Mount Vernon, WA 98273 Phone: (360) 336-6527 info@soundfinancialplanning.net Secondary Office 650 Mullis St., Ste 101 Friday Harbor, WA 98250 (360) 378-3022 www.soundfinancialplanning.net PLEASE READ THIS WARNING: All e-mail sent to or from this address will be received or otherwise recorded by the Sound Financial Planning, Inc. corporate e-mail system and is subject to archival, monitoring and/or review, by and/or disclosure to, someone other than the recipient. This message is intended only for the use of the person(s) ("intended recipient") to whom it is addressed. It may contain information that is privileged and confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender as soon as possible and delete the message without reading it or making a copy. Any dissemination, distribution, copying, or other use of this message or any of its content by any person other than the intended recipient is strictly prohibited. Sound Financial Planning, Inc. has taken precautions to screen this message for viruses, but we cannot guarantee that it is virus free nor are we responsible for any damage that may be caused by this message. Sound Financial Planning, Inc. only transacts business in states where it is properly registered or notice filed, or excluded or exempted from registration requirements. Follow-up and individualized responses that involve either the effecting or attempting to effect transactions in securities or the rendering of personalized investment advice for compensation, as the case may be, will not be made absent compliance with state investment adviser and investment adviser representative registration requirements, or an applicable exemption or exclusion. This information should not be construed as investment advice. All information is believed to be from reliable sources; however, we make no representation as to its completeness or accuracy. WE WOULD LIKE TO CREDIT THIS ARTICLE'S CONTENT TO MARKETING PRO INC.