How to retire

By Amina Isakovic

What are the important resources to pull from when deciding to retire? According to the U.S. Social Security website, the three most important elements are your retirement portfolio, savings and investments, and social security benefits.

So where do you start if you’d like to receive your social security benefits. Well first off, you should take advantage of the government provided website and calculate what age fits your needs best to retire in. You can do this by going to their Retirement Planner . There you can see the percentage of your benefits that you will receive starting at the age that you were born and will retire.

Secondly, you need to get in contact with your financial advisor, or company financial advisor and see how many assets you have towards your retirement. You can’t rely merely on your social security benefits, this could become very risky. Will pensions and Social Security be enough? According to CNN, probably not. You should always start investing early in retirement, so that risky ventures can, in the end, become large financial assets that you can pull from. 401(k)’s and IRA’s are great ways to invest in your retirement.

True, we’re not there yet. We don’t have to even think about this. But at least know the laws and rules to retirement. If not, then pass it on to someone who is about to retire in today’s financial crisis.