How big is your nest egg?
Planning for a comfortable retirement.

One in five Americans will have saved nothing this year, yet 31 percent plan to retire by the age of 55, according to a recent NBC poll. If you haven’t yet retired, your income situation is probably pretty simple: you keep working and your paychecks keep coming. With retirement all of that changes.

It's never too early or too late to start the important planning that must be done. Whether retirement is years away or just around the corner, you need to look at your overall current plans.

Here are some steps to get you started:

1. Evaluate all sources of income. Some possibilities are your company’s or school’s pension plan, IRA, 401K or other investments.
   
   

2. Determine how long you can expect to receive income from each source. Will any of your sources run out?
   
   

3. Will the amount you receive be fixed (like most private pensions), increase with the cost of living (like Social Security), or fluctuate (like stock dividends)? To help you estimate what your Social Security benefit might be when you retire, you can request a Personal Earnings and Benefit Estimate Statement at www.ssa.gov.

If you find your retirement income isn’t equaling about 75% of your pre-retirement takehome pay, you’d be wise to start saving more. A credit union representative would be happy to tell you about our IRA programs that allow you to save tax-free.