Find Out How Much Money You’ll Save By Waiting To Retire

Silvur helps you make smart decisions about your financial future based on your Retirement Score. (Shutterstock ),

This post is sponsored and contributed by a Patch Brand Partner. The views expressed in this post are the author’s own.

For many people nearing retirement age, deciding when to retire or when to start claiming Social Security benefits can be a daunting task. There are a number of factors that can influence when you decide to stop working full time, including your expenses, your savings and whether you’re planning to work part time in your retirement. With all of these moving parts, figuring out the best time to retire can be overwhelming. Thankfully, Silvur is here to help.

Silvur, a free app dedicated to helping folks reach their retirement goals, allows you to easily and accurately project your lifetime income, calculate exactly when you’re going to be financially ready to retire, and find out if you need to delay your retirement start date.

Download Silvur To Calculate Your Social Security Benefits At Any Age

Why Delaying Retirement Can Be A Good Thing

Planning trips and deciding which fun or relaxing hobbies you’re going to pick up once you retire can be a blast. Although traveling is something we all hope to do in retirement, there are expenses that need to be accounted for before booking any well-deserved trips. For example, health care, taxes, prescription drugs and other retirement expenses can be pricey; and if you’re not in a secure enough financial position to retire at your target age, you might have to delay your retirement.

While realizing that you have to delay your retirement can be a tough pill to swallow, pushing back your retirement start date comes with a variety of benefits, such as feeling financially secure, lowering your stress levels and — of course — increasing your retirement savings. Additionally, you can use the cash you save by delaying retirement to fund any well-deserved vacations or big-ticket items you plan to purchase. But before you delay your retirement, you should check if you’re in the correct financial position to retire comfortably by your planned retirement target date.

If you’re married, you also need to consider your spouse or partner’s financial situation. Are they on the same savings path as you are, with a similar retirement target date in mind? It’s crucial that you find out, since their income and assets can significantly influence your joint retirement goals if you plan to stop working at or around the same time. That’s why it’s important to have these conversations with your spouse as soon as possible, so you can both assess your financial situations and make confident retirement decisions together.

How Much Will You Save By Delaying Retirement? Download Silvur To Find Out

How Do I Know If I Need to Delay My Retirement?

Although it might seem like a straightforward answer, figuring out if you need to delay your retirement can be a bit more complex if you’re not sure about your current financial situation. Here are some questions you need to answer for yourself:

Do you feel that your savings will be enough to last you comfortably for at least 25 years in retirement?
Do you know what your retirement spending will be?
Do you have any dependents you need to take care of for the next five to 10 years?
Did you plan out your health care costs and whether you’d need more medical assistance as you age?
Do you have at least six months of living expenses saved for emergencies?

If you don’t know the answers to these questions, it might be wise to establish a plan until you feel secure enough to retire. Silvur’s Retirement Score calculator is the perfect tool to help you.

By answering a few financial questions, Silvur will project your Retirement Score, which will show you how long your money will last in your retirement. (Silvur)

How Does Silvur Calculate Your Retirement Score?

Silvur helps you make smart decisions about your financial future based on your Retirement Score. To get your Retirement Score, download the iOS app and enter your income, assets and planned retirement date. From there, you’ll get a Retirement Score that shows you how long your money will last into retirement. If you’re in a less secure financial situation and you do have to push your retirement start date, Silvur’s no-fear retirement calculator will show you how to delay your retirement with grace, and calculate exactly how much more money you’ll save by delaying your retirement.

Let’s take a look at Sarah, a 58-year-old Silvur user who makes a salary of $85,000 a year and plans to retire at age 61. Her total assets add up to be $860,000: $650,000 from her retirement accounts and $210,000 from home equity. In addition, her monthly spending is $4,500. Her current calculated Silvur Retirement Score — which shows what age her money will last in retirement — is 85.2. Silvur allows her to quickly see what small lifestyle changes she can make now to significantly improve her Retirement Score. She was able to plan out different scenarios to confidently make her decision by doing any or all of the following:

Reducing her spending by $250/monthly (new total monthly is $4,250) will increase her Retirement Score to 89.3, adding four extra years.
Adding five years of $1,000 monthly part-time income will increase her Retirement Score to 88.2, adding three extra years.
Delaying retirement by three years will increase her Retirement Score to 94.3, adding nine extra years.

Silvur will help you plan your retirement by calculating decisions you plan to make in your later years to show you how that impacts your Retirement Score.

Learn What Decisions You Can Make Today To Increase Your Retirement Score And Income Throughout Your Retirement By Downloading Silvur, The Free Retirement Planning App

With Silvur, you can easily project your lifetime income and see exactly what you need to do to be on track for your retirement goals. (Silvur)

How To Make Your Money Last In Retirement

With Silvur, it’s easy to project your lifetime income and see exactly what you need to do to be on track for your retirement goals. Oftentimes, though, your projected lifetime income and savings don’t match up with your anticipated retirement expenses, and you’re forced to rethink your retirement target date. In addition to delaying your retirement date, there are a number of steps you can take to increase your nest egg, raise your Retirement Score and make your money last longer in retirement. These steps include:

1. Delaying Your Social Security Benefits
Silvur lets you easily calculate the Social Security benefits you’ll receive at every age and how they compare to your expenses and net worth. For most Americans, waiting until full retirement age (between 65 and 67, depending on when you were born) to collect benefits is often the best choice. However, if you can afford to wait a few extra years before cashing in, you’ll earn a delayed retirement credit for every month you don’t take Social Security until you turn 70, which can increase your benefits by up to 8 percent a year.

2. Downsizing To Reduce Your Expenses
One way to dramatically reduce your expenses is by downsizing. Before you start to worry, downsizing doesn’t have to mean giving up living space or moving into an uncomfortably small residence. Downsizing simply means prioritizing certain aspects of your living situation over others. One common way to downsize is moving to a nearby area where the cost of living is more affordable or moving to a state that doesn’t have an income tax.

3. Continuing To Save On Everyday Purchases
Using Silvur’s financial planning features, you can assess how much money you’ll need when you retire. You can then use that number to analyze your expenses and spending to help you figure out what you can do to save even more money over a given period.

4. Working Part Time During The Early Years Of Your Retirement
If you’re able to add some part-time work into your retirement plans, you might not have to delay your retirement at all. Continuing to work part time in retirement allows you to offset expenses, continue to grow your retirement account and — depending on where you work — take advantage of employer health care benefits. If you can’t find a part-time gig that works for you, try talking with your current employer to see if you can reduce your hours as you ease into retirement.

5. Delaying Your Retirement Until You Qualify For Medicare
Another way to make your money last during retirement is taking advantage of the financial benefits of qualifying for Medicare. In case you’re not familiar, Medicare is a four-part, government-sponsored program that’s designed to help cover health care costs for Americans age 65 and older, as well as those who qualify as disabled and patients who are on dialysis. If you don’t sign up for Medicare when you’re first eligible and don’t have other health care coverage, you may have to pay a late enrollment penalty later when you do enroll.

If you’re currently working and covered under your employer’s health care plan, it generally makes sense to still enroll in Medicare if you qualify — even while you’re on your employer’s plan. A benefit of being enrolled in Medicare is that Medicare may pay for costs that aren’t covered by your employer’s plan, which can help you save more out-of-pocket. We suggest you speak with your company’s benefits administrator before doing so.

The Bottom Line

By delaying your retirement, you can increase your savings to better plan for health care costs that may arise in the future. You can also save for unexpected events including family emergencies, home improvements, medical expenses and more. Delaying your retirement can also afford you the financial security and stability needed to act on any unfulfilled desires, from faraway vacations to a new car.