Your retirement plan is likely entirely contingent on how long you intend or consider yourself able to work. Health crises or economic crises may be pushing more people toward an unexpected retirement or an early retirement than ever before. Even if you don’t believe that a retirement is immediately on your horizon, it can be well worth spending some time thinking about how you would adapt quickly if you needed to move into retirement.
Retiring earlier than expected is not something new. In fact, a study recently completed by Allianz Life found that half of current retirees retired earlier than expected. Most of the people in that study, however, said that they retired for reasons outside of their control, such as the unexpected loss of a job or the development of healthcare issues that prevented them from being able to do the job.
The first thing to do when planning ahead for potentially early retirement is to fill in the gaps by examining health care needs first and then looking into other employment options.
A part time hourly or contract position could be a way to help bridge the gap if you were not financially ready to retire at the time that you had to leave the work force for one reason or another.
If you had to retire due to health issues, now is also the time to look more deeply into your elder law plan. Have you thought about protecting yourself or your spouse if your healthcare issues got worse? Do you know how you’d qualify for Medicaid if you needed it?
Schedule a time to speak with an elder law attorney if you’re coming up on retirement and are ready to answer the important questions around your elder law plan.
Tom Torr
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