RETIREMENT GUIDES
Learn About Retirement
Straightforward guides to help you understand retirement income, spending, taxes, and the decisions ahead.
40 guides across 5 topics
Explore the guides
Find a clear answer to your retirement question.
40 guides
What Is a Good Retirement Income? Breaking Down the Numbers (2026)
A good retirement income for most Americans falls between $50,000 and $80,000 per year — roughly $4,200 to $6,700 per month. But "good" is deeply personal. A retired couple in rural Tennessee and a single retiree in San Francisco have fundamentally different definitions of enough. What matters isn't the number itself — it's whether your income covers your expenses, supports your lifestyle, and holds up against inflation for 20–30 years.
14 min readWhat Is the Best Order to Withdraw from Retirement Accounts? (2026)
The standard withdrawal order is: taxable brokerage accounts first, traditional IRA and 401k second, Roth IRA last. This sequence minimizes lifetime taxes by drawing from lower-taxed accounts early and preserving tax-free Roth growth as long as possible. But the right order for you depends on your tax bracket, Social Security timing, RMD schedule, and whether you're in an unusually high or low income year — and the standard order should be broken strategically in specific situations.
17 min readWhat Is the FIRE Movement? A Beginner's Guide to Financial Independence (2026)
FIRE stands for Financial Independence, Retire Early — a movement built on the idea that by saving and investing an unusually high percentage of your income, you can accumulate enough wealth to live off investment returns without ever working again. The core math is simple: save 25 times your annual expenses, live off 4% of that portfolio indefinitely. Someone spending $40,000/year needs $1 million. Someone spending $80,000/year needs $2 million. The timeline to get there depends almost entirely on your savings rate.
17 min readSocial Security at 62, 67, or 70: 70%, 100%, or 124%
Claiming at 62 pays 70% of your full benefit, 67 pays 100%, and 70 pays 124%. A $2,000 benefit at 67 is $1,400 at 62 and $2,480 at 70. Waiting from 62 to 70 breaks even around age 80.
18 min readReady to put the ideas to work?
Bring your numbers together in the Plan Builder, or explore a single question with a free calculator.