RETIREMENT GUIDES
Learn About Retirement
Straightforward guides to help you understand retirement income, spending, taxes, and the decisions ahead.
40 guides across 5 topics
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40 guides
How Much Does Healthcare Cost in Retirement? A Realistic Estimate (2026)
Fidelity's 2026 estimate is $185,500 for a 65-year-old and about $371,000 for a couple, excluding long-term care.
20 min readHow Much Should I Save for Retirement Each Month?
Most financial advisors recommend saving 15% of your gross income for retirement each month — including any employer match. On a $60,000 salary, that's $750/month. On $100,000, it's $1,250/month. But 15% assumes you started saving in your 20s. If you're starting later, your required monthly savings rate is higher — sometimes significantly.
14 min readHow Much Will I Get from Social Security? $1,907/Month Average (2026)
The average Social Security retirement benefit in 2026 is $1,907/month ($22,884/year) — but your personal benefit could range from a few hundred dollars to over $4,800/month depending on your earnings history, claiming age, and years worked. Estimate yours with the Social Security calculator, then read on to see exactly how the SSA calculates your number.
14 min readHow to Calculate Your RMD: $500,000 ÷ 26.5 = $18,868 (2026)
Divide your December 31 account balance by the IRS life expectancy factor for your age — a 73-year-old with $500,000 divides by 26.5 from the Uniform Lifetime Table and owes $18,868. Plug in your own balance with the RMD calculator.
18 min readHow to Create a Retirement Budget: A Step-by-Step Guide (2026)
Creating a retirement budget requires six steps: calculate your expected income from all sources, list your essential monthly expenses, add discretionary spending, account for healthcare costs, build in inflation, and calculate whether your income covers your expenses. The gap — or surplus — between income and expenses is the number that determines whether your retirement plan works. Most people who do this exercise for the first time are surprised by the result — either they've overestimated what they need or underestimated healthcare costs. Either way, knowing the real number before you retire is the entire point.
20 min readHow to Reduce Taxes on Required Minimum Distributions (2026 Guide)
The most powerful strategies to reduce taxes on Required Minimum Distributions are: Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCDs) for up to $105,000/year tax-free to charity, Roth conversions before age 73 to reduce future RMD amounts, and careful timing of withdrawals to stay within lower tax brackets. RMDs are mandatory — but how much tax you pay on them is not. With the right plan, most retirees can reduce their effective RMD tax rate significantly, and some can eliminate it entirely on a portion of their distributions.
17 min readHow to Retire Early: The Math Behind FIRE (2026)
To retire early, you need to save 25× your annual expenses and accumulate those savings fast enough to retire before traditional retirement age. The timeline is almost entirely determined by your savings rate — not your income. At a 50% savings rate, you can retire in approximately 17 years from zero, regardless of whether you earn $50,000 or $200,000. At a 70% savings rate, that compresses to 8–9 years. At a 20% savings rate, it takes 37 years — roughly a traditional career. The math is unambiguous; the difficulty is behavioral.
19 min readHow to Withdraw from Retirement Accounts Tax-Efficiently (2026 Guide)
The order in which you withdraw from retirement accounts can save you tens of thousands of dollars in taxes over a 20–30 year retirement. The general rule is: spend taxable accounts first, tax-deferred accounts (traditional 401k and IRA) second, and Roth accounts last. But the real opportunity is in the gap between retirement and age 73 — a window to strategically convert traditional IRA money to Roth at low tax rates before Required Minimum Distributions force larger taxable withdrawals.
17 min readI Haven't Started Saving for Retirement — Is It Too Late? (2026)
No. It is not too late. But the honest answer has a second half: the strategies available to you, and the retirement you can build, depend significantly on your age and your willingness to make some deliberate choices in the years ahead.
20 min readReady to put the ideas to work?
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