So are you ready for retirement? Think so? Let's give it a go! Here is how we are going to do it!
First, you must figure out what your retirement payment would be. That means you will need to speak to someone from the Social Security Administration to determine what your social security payments are projected to be. You can use this url to estimate your social security payments also: https://www.ssa.gov/retire/estimator.html.
If there is a pension or other retirement funds available you should speak with someone from those areas also to estimate what your retirement payments would be on a monthly basis.
Calculate the monthly amount is for the Social Security projected payment and the projected payment from the other retirement sources. Whatever total you come with, select a month within the next three months to live on that total amount.
So for instance Jane uses the estimator at www.ssa.gov and it is determined that she would receive $1,600.00 per month. Jane then contacts her benefits coordinator from her current employer and determines that she would receive an estimated $750.00 per month during retirement. She has additional retirement funds in other places which would cause her to receive a projected $350.00 per month. Therefore Jane's projected retirement income is $2,700.00 per month. With that Jane will decide to use the month of September to live off of $2,700.00 per month.
The goal of an exercise like this is two fold: (1) to help the participant understand that there lifestyle maybe impacted severely in retirement and (2) to help the participant see that saving for retirement should be a high priority. Try the exercise and see how it is. Once you tried it for a monthplease let me know your thoughts on retirement!