What Age Should You Start Retirement Planning?

Robb Engen discusses the ideal time to start building a retirement roadmap.

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When people are looking at tax planning in retirement, trying to optimize their after-tax income and blend all of their priorities, what age do you want to see them first start thinking about this? It’s not age 63 and 66, obviously. When do they first really benefit from taking a look at all the math?

I mean, I think if you, you know, it’s like asking a barber if you need a haircut, right? Of course, everyone could benefit from planning at certain stages of life. But I think once you get into your fifties where there’s maybe a ten-year runway, um, you know, eight to ten-year runway away. One, you don’t wanna leave it too long that you, you might have been able to retire earlier, right?

So let’s do the work and put in a roadmap to follow so that maybe you can retire earlier than you ever thought. You certainly don’t wanna leave it too long, and then you miss a window of opportunity that you could have done some good planning, good savings habits, et cetera. Um, so, you know, that ten-year runway, five years may be pushing it.

A lot of people just reach out, though, and say, “Can I retire next year?”

You get a lot of that.

They do. Absolutely, yeah. And, and I think that’s just we’re procrastinators by nature, and I think a lot of people who were pretty good savers probably know. They know that they can do it. And now they’re like, “I probably should get some professional guidance and, and build that roadmap for me just to stress-test this, um, before I put in my resignation letter,” which I think is perfectly fine.