Consider other alternatives that can reduce how much you need to save. The most obvious one: Think about delaying retirement by a few years. That strategy will allow you make more contributions to your retirement accounts while postponing withdrawals - which could significantly increase the size of your nest egg even as it reduces the amount you need to accumulate to make it through retirement.
For example, if you’re making $75,000 per year and retire today at age 65 with $500,000 in retirement savings and withdraw $43,000 a year, there’s a 52% chance your savings will last until age 90. But if you delay retirement for another five years while putting 15% of your income into a retirement account and maxing out your IRA contributions during that period, you’d have a 98% chance that your saving would last through age 90. You could increase your annual withdrawals to $72,000 and still have a 70% chance that your savings would last to age 90.
Getting a part-time job after you retire also can make a big financial difference - and can provide mental, physical and emotional benefits as well. Other options include trading down to a less-expensive home (you can invest the profits toward retirement), reining in your spending or transforming the equity in your home into income by taking out a reverse mortgage - though high costs mean this last option is a good idea for only a small number of retirees.
