Retirement planning guides: dates, numbers and decisions

What should you know about retirement planning first?

Most retirement decisions come with a date attached: the first month you can claim Social Security, your Medicare enrollment window and the year your required minimum distributions (RMDs) begin. Getting one wrong can mean a permanently smaller check, a late-enrollment penalty that lasts as long as you have coverage, or an IRS penalty on a withdrawal you forgot to take.

Our view: write your own dates down once, then revisit them every fall when Social Security, Medicare and the IRS publish next year’s numbers. The guides here show how one decision changes the next, so you can plan them together rather than one at a time.

Which retirement planning questions can you answer right now?

Each of these questions opens a free calculator or reference page that works out the official answer for your own situation in a minute or two. There is no sign-up and nothing to download, and every result shows the official figures and sources behind it, so you can check the math yourself.