When you turn 50, you're almost certainly within two decades of the time to retire. Hopefully, you're in pretty good shape with your savings and well on the path toward building a secure future.
Unfortunately, many people aren't quite on track with their retirement savings. And even those who are need to make sure they are stepping on the gas when it comes to investing. A good number of people are forced into early retirement before they are quite ready, thanks to health issues, family issues, or unexpected unemployment.
The good news is, you have a great opportunity to supercharge your retirement savings when you are 50 or older -- but you have to make the choice to take advantage of it.
If you are turning 50 this year (or already have reached this milestone), you should make this change to your retirement savings if you can, so you can set yourself up for success.
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Try to make this key change to your retirement savings at age 50 or later
Once you have turned 50, the big change that you should try to make is to start taking advantage of the opportunity to make catch-up contributions.
Catch-up contributions allow you to make additional investments in your tax-advantaged accounts. For example, in 2025:
- You are allowed to contribute $23,500 to your 401(k) if you are under 50, but once you turn 50, you can make an additional catch-up contribution of $7,500. Or, starting in 2025, if you are between the ages of 60 and 63, you can actually contribute up to $11,250 as a catch-up contribution, provided your plan allows it.
- You are allowed to contribute $6,000 to your traditional IRA or your Roth IRA. This is a combined contribution limit for both accounts. However, once you have turned 50, you can make an additional catch-up contribution of $1,000. This brings the total combined contributions for a traditional and Roth IRA to $7,000 if you max out your catch-up contributions.
Being able to invest thousands of dollars more in tax-advantaged accounts each year is a huge benefit as you try to prepare for your future. Remember, you can't live on Social Security alone because these benefits just don't provide enough money. The benefits are only intended to replace 40% of pre-retirement income, and very few people can live on that comfortably.
By taking advantage of catch-up contributions, you'll maximize the government help available to subsidize your retirement and will save yourself some money on taxes either now or in the future.
How to take full advantage of catch-up contributions
If you want to take advantage of the great opportunity that catch-up contributions provide to you, you'll need to notify your 401(k) plan administrator that you'll be investing more. If you have a traditional or Roth IRA you are contributing to, you can change the amount you invest yourself. Hopefully, this process is automated, and you just need to increase the amount you're transferring to retirement savings to get that extra $1,000 in there.
Of course, you need to be in a financial position to do that -- which means that retirement investing should be a huge priority in your budget. If you aren't taking advantage of catch-up contributions, try taking a close look at your budget. Consider tracking spending to determine exactly where you may be overspending, and look at non-essential expenses like gym memberships and streaming services that can be cut.
Even if you can't max out every dollar of the catch-up contribution, it's worth trying to budget for these added investments -- or working a little bit extra to make them. You don't want to spend your retirement struggling, so do your best to take the help the government is giving you to build the future that you deserve.
