If you're 64 and thinking about retiring, here's what you need to do today

If you’re around the age of 64, you almost certainly remember the heyday of the Beatles. Their 1967 song, “When I’m Sixty Four,” laments getting older, pondering, “Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m sixty-four?”

Fortunately, our attitudes about aging and what is considered “old” have evolved since the '60s. Today, you’re considered relatively young at 64 — in part because so many people are living longer, more active lives.

Nearly one in four Omaha households have someone age 65 or older. That’s a 37 percent increase in the number of seniors, according to census data from a decade ago. In metro Omaha that’s about 85,000 seniors. There’s more to come: The largest number of people will turn 65 in 2025.

Most will be eligible for Medicare. Most will be surprised to discover that Medicare doesn’t provide the kind of coverage they were used to under their employer’s health plan. It can be eye-opening to find out dental, vision and hearing benefits are not part of basic Medicare.

So if you’re 64, thinking about your retirement, what should you do?

Enrolling in Medicare

Some insurance companies will start contacting you about their Medicare products a year in advance — which is good, because there is homework to do.

Answers to two basic questions will help you begin:

1. Do you need to enroll in Medicare at your 65th birthday?

2. How do you choose the right Medicare coverage and avoid penalties?

Regarding the first question: If you don’t have health insurance through your employer or another source, you may want to enroll in both Medicare Part A and Medicare Part B on your 65th birthday. If you do have employer coverage, you may want to sign up for just Part A. There’s no monthly premium.

“People get confused, thinking the deadline to enroll for Medicare is the same time as when they need to apply for Social Security,” said Dr. Debra Esser, chief medical officer, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska. “They are different. If you were born between 1943 and 1954, retirement age for Social Security purposes is 66, but Medicare enrollment is at 65.”

In answer to the second question — how to avoid enrollment penalties — allow yourself plenty of time. Most experts advise three months before your 65th birthday. The penalties start if you don’t enroll when you’re first eligible. If you’re late enrolling for Part A you could pay a 10 percent penalty; for Part B, the penalty could go up 10 percent each year for as long as you are enrolled. In addition, Medicare Part D (prescription drug benefits), assesses a penalty based on the number of months you could have had coverage but didn’t sign up.

OK, so you’re enrolled in Medicare. But remember, Medicare doesn’t pay all your costs. You’ll need to purchase additional coverage to fill in the gaps. It’s important to pick the plan that best suits your coverage needs, budget and lifestyle. It’s also important to get advice from coverage experts, such as an agent or a broker.

“My advice: Don’t be afraid. There are many resources available and people more than willing to help you,” Esser said.

Medicare Supplement

Medicare Supplement insurance (also called Medigap) can be purchased from a private insurance company. Medicare Supplement covers what basic Medicare doesn’t, such as co-payments, deductibles and health care outside the United States. Supplements don’t cover long-term care, dental, vision, hearing and private-duty nursing.

Medicare Advantage

Medicare Advantage plans are often called Part C and are offered by private insurance companies approved by Medicare. The plans often provide benefits for routine vision, dental and hearing services and prescription drugs. If you’re thinking you want a Medicare Advantage Plan, you must be enrolled in both Medicare Parts A and B.

Bottom line: Do your homework and get expert advice. That way, when you’re 64, with some preparation, you’ll be ready to make decisions about your Medicare coverage with confidence.

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Do I have enough saved to cover my spending in retirement?

(CNNMoney)Most retirement projections seem to be based on how much income you'll need in retirement. But shouldn't my planning be based on how much I'll actually spend after I retire? How do I figure out what my spending might be and whether I'll be able to meet my spending needs?—Jeff

You're right. Ideally, you would want to base your retirement planning on expenses, or how much it will actually cost you each year to live the post-career lifestyle you aspire to. Knowing that, you could then better estimate how large a nest egg you'll require, how much you'll need to save on a regular basis during your working years to build that nest egg and how many years your savings stash is likely to support you in retirement.

But when retirement is decades away, it's tough to get an accurate fix on what your future living costs will be. After all, that figure can vary significantly depending on such difficult-to-pin-down factors as how healthy you'll remain as you age, which can determine how much you'll spend on health care; whether you'll pay off your mortgage and other debt before or soon after you retire; whether you'll have an active retirement that involves spending considerable sums on travel and entertainment or live a more modest lifestyle closer to home, etc.

And in fact research shows that the amount retirees think they'll spend and how much they wind up shelling out can be quite different. According to the latest Wells Fargo/Gallup Investor and Retirement Optimism Index, more than a quarter of retirees said their daily living expenses were higher than they expected and nearly 40% said they underestimated health care costs.

Related: Late start on retirement saving? Here's how to play catch-up

So instead of trying to forecast what our actual expenses will be 20, 30 or more years down the road, we rely on "replacement ratios," or the percentage of our pre-retirement income we must replace to maintain our standard of living in retirement.

By going to a retirement income calculator and plugging in the percentage of income you think you may need to replace — somewhere between 70% and 90% is typical — you can come away with a decent sense of how much you'll need to save each year to build a nest egg that's large enough, with help from Social Security and any pensions, to generate sufficient income in retirement.

Make no mistake: these replacement ratios are still estimates, albeit ones that are grounded in research based for the most part on spending data from the Department of Labor's Consumer Expenditure Survey. But these rules of thumb can at least provide a reasonable framework for planning in the face of many unknowns, allowing you to set a savings target and then periodically revisit the calculator to monitor whether you're making progress toward your retirement goal. If you find that you're not making headway, you can see how moves like saving more, investing differently, retiring later or ratcheting down your retirement lifestyle might improve your outlook.

Once you're in the home stretch to retirement, however — say, within 10 years of exiting your job — chances are you'll have a better handle on how your retirement spending might shape up. At that point, it's a good idea to do an actual retirement budget. You could go old school and just jot down what you think you'll spend in various categories using a pencil and a legal pad. But it's probably more convenient (and easier for making revisions later on) if you use a budgeting tool or worksheet online.

One such tool is the Retirement Expense Worksheet that giant asset manager BlackRock offers free online. You can enter upwards of 50 separate expense items, ranging from essentials such as food, housing, transportation and health care to discretionary outlays like travel, entertainment, gifts and charitable contributions. Aside from an overall total, the worksheet gives you a tally for both your essential and discretionary items, a breakdown that can come in handy for gauging how much leeway you have for reducing expenses later on should that be necessary.

Once you're satisfied that you have a relatively firm grasp on what your retirement expenses will be, you can then plug that figure into the calculator instead of a replacement ratio to gauge whether you've got enough saved for retirement (and, if not, estimate how much you'll need).

Related: Where can I find no-risk investments?

Of course, unless you're clairvoyant, the retirement budget you come up with isn't going to be 100% accurate. Some expenses will come in higher than you expect, others will be lower and you'll no doubt have to deal with some expenses you didn't anticipate at all. Life isn't as predictable as a spreadsheet.

But the idea is to be as accurate and thorough as you can, and then revise your budget every year or so based on reviews of actual spending as you near and enter retirement. To the extent that in the years leading up to retirement you can do some "lifestyle planning," or thinking seriously about how you'll actually live after leaving the workforce, you should be able to better anticipate the costs you'll face after you retire.

Fact is, by its nature retirement planning doesn't lend itself to certainty. There are too many unknowables — how much your earnings will grow during your career, whether you'll be able to stick to your savings regimen, what size returns the financial markets will deliver, what share of those returns you'll capture with your retirement investments.

You can't even be completely sure when it comes to such major assumptions as when you'll retire (EBRI's Retirement Confidence Survey shows that nearly half of retirees left the workforce earlier than planned, usually because of health problems or downsizing) and how long you'll live (although this longevity tool can at least help you assess the probability of living to different ages).

But if you take the approach I've outlined above and do some fine-tuning periodically, you should have a reasonable shot at ensuring that your nest egg along with Social Security and other resources will allow you to live an acceptable lifestyle as long as you're around.

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Relocating In Retirement: Don't Make These Common Mistakes

Relocating In Retirement: Don't Make These Common Mistakes

Jamie Hopkins , CONTRIBUTOR Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

While most Americans show a desire to age in place, retirement can also be the ideal time to sell your home and relocate or downsize. Kids are typically grown up and moved out of the home, and the need to be close to work is gone, so many seniors use retirement as a catalyst for relocating. Some relocate because of a lifestyle or climate change, others want to be to family, and others due purely to financial circumstances. Whatever the reason, retirees appear to be making two big mistakes with their homes. They seem to vastly misunderstand the home as an investment decision, and they don’t consider the financing options available to them at all.

In the 2017 National Association of REALTORS® Home Buyer and Seller Generational Trends Report, homebuyers were asked to compare the purchase of their home as a financial investment as compared to a stock. Amazingly, 80% of those ages 61-70 viewed it as a good financial investment, with over half stating it was a better investment than stocks. Now, while stocks are more volatile, they do appear to be a far better investment option than a single family home. Generally speaking, homes keep pace with inflation and provide no real returns over time. Additionally, many senior-owned homes tend to decrease in real value terms over time due to a lack of updates and upkeep to the home. In 2017 the Dow posted a 25% return, while home values have surged over the past year, only netting out a roughly 6% return over the same time period. While 6% would normally be great, it pales in comparison to stock returns over the past year.

This does not mean that purchasing a home is a bad decision. You need a place to live, and buying a home is often a better financial decision than renting. The reality is that homes are not good investments, but they can still be a good financial decision. Nevertheless, the fact remains that stocks have proved historically to be a good investment in the long run, while homes stay flat when adjusted for inflation.

When relocating in retirement, a new home purchase must be financed or funded in some way. There are a lot of options for doing this; however, few seniors appear to be reviewing the entire range of financing options. According to the same 2017 NAR® Generational study, roughly 68% of home buyers aged 61-70 financed their home, with a median percent of their home financed at 81%. Additionally, 89% of these individuals used a conventional mortgage. Another 4% used a fixed then adjustable rate, 2% used an adjustable rate, 4% didn’t know what type of mortgage they used and 2% responded other.

In the end, the majority of seniors relocating are doing one of two things, mostly financing their home purchase through a traditional mortgage or buying the new home outright. Unfortunately, both of these options come with some serious drawbacks. Taking out a new mortgage to almost fully finance the home purchase in retirement creates some serious cash flow and repayment issues. Additionally, those purchasing a home outright with cash are essentially investing and locking up a lot of their wealth into one asset that does not provide great returns over time.

Instead, more seniors should consider putting some money down and financing a portion of the home with a HECM for Purchase, which is a variation of a reverse mortgage. This can mitigate problems on both sides by eliminating the requirement to make monthly mortgage payments and freeing up cash for other uses. Additionally, with less than 1 percent of seniors using a reverse mortgage, and even fewer using it to purchase a home through the HECM for purchase program, more seniors need to understand the program and its benefits. Reverse mortgages were designed by the Government to allow senior homeowners to tap into their home equity to support their retirement. A number of years ago HUD revamped the program to also allow homeowners 62+ to buy a home with a variation of the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage, commonly referred to as a reverse mortgage. While the more common reverse mortgage allows homeowners to leverage a portion of the equity in their home, the HECM for Purchase is designed for those 62+ to purchase a home by putting forth about half of the cost of purchase price and financing the other half with the HECM for Purchase.  This allows the homeowner to not have to fully fund the purchase through a conventional mortgage or pay all cash up-front.

Chris Kargacos, SVP of Sales at Retirement Funding Solutions, a leading lender of the HECM for Purchase, stated “this program can be a good option for senior buyers who are looking to right size their housing needs and potentially bolster their retirement portfolio or improve their cash flow position. While this may not be a fit for everyone, it can be a viable option for some.” While the HECM for Purchase does not make sense for everyone, it makes sense for a lot more buyers than are currently using the program. (For more information on the HECM for Purchase check out this guideprovided by the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association or check out this short video).

When it comes to retirement and your home, look at the options out there and understand how each decision impacts your entire retirement plan. Taking on debt through a conventional mortgage or a reverse mortgage can be a viable strategy to facilitate a home purchase in retirement, but understand the impact and costs associated with the transaction. Don’t view the home as an investment strategy but instead as purchasing a place to live that will support your desired lifestyle goals in retirement. Where to live is one of the most important decisions you will make in retirement, so take the time to review your options and understand the implications of financing your new retirement home.

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Will You Outlive Your Retirement Savings?

Your nest egg needs to sustain you throughout retirement.  Here's how to make sure it does! 

Of the various things today's older workers might fear — losing their jobs, needing to quit due to health issues, and so forth — there's perhaps no prospect more terrifying than the notion of outliving their savings. In fact, 60% of Baby Boomers claim they're more worried about running out of money in retirement than actually dying.

Sadly, it's a valid concern, especially since countless older Americans are also considerably behind on savings. The Economic Policy Institute reports that the median savings balance among workers ages 56 to 61 is a mere $17,000 — hardly enough to live off even with Social Security factored into the mix.

If you're concerned about outliving your savings, then you'll need to be proactive in avoiding that fate. And there are steps you can take to improve your long-term financial picture. First, however, you'll need to assess your personal risk, which you can do by asking yourself the following questions:  

1. Have I been saving 15% or more of my income?

It used to be the case that to retire comfortably, you'd need to set aside 10% of your earnings over time. Not anymore. Given the way health care and other costs have inflated in recent years, you'll need to do better if you want enough money to cover the bills for the long haul. That's why workers today really need to set aside 15% or more of their income for the future.

If you've been saving at that level, or somewhere in the vicinity, then you're probably in pretty good shape. Similarly, if you haven't been saving that much, but are still relatively young with many working years ahead of you, there's a good chance you'll come out just fine if you ramp up immediately. But if you're already in your mid- to late 50s and haven't been hitting that threshold, there's a strong chance you'll run out of money at some point if you don't take steps to compensate.

How do you do that? It's simple: Work longer, and max out your savings for as many years as you can. If your original goal was to retire at 65 and you push yourself to work until 70, all the while maxing out your 401(k) during that five-year period, you'll have an extra $122,500 to play with in retirement — and that assumes zero investment growth. Not only will extending your career offer you an opportunity to save more, but it'll also help you avoid dipping into your existing savings for however many years you remain on the job.

Another option: Continue working in retirement, albeit on a part-time basis. You can approach your long-term employer about a partial retirement, or pursue something new if you can't bear to keep plugging away at your current job any longer. The key is to generate enough income to avoid depleting your nest egg prematurely.

2. How much of my savings do I plan to withdraw each year?

The key to stretching your nest egg is knowing how much of it you can afford to withdraw annually during retirement. For years, experts have lauded the 4% rule as a solid withdrawal strategy, since the rule is designed to make your savings last for up to 30 years — but unless you fit very specific criteria, withdrawing that much of your savings each year could cause you to deplete your reserves sooner than expected.

The problem with the 4% rule is that it makes certain assumptions about your portfolio and its growth potential. One is that you still have more than half of your assets in stocks, and that your bonds generate a respectable level of income. But what if you unloaded most of your stocks in an effort to lower your risk? Suddenly, that formula is thrown way off. Similarly, bonds today pay considerably less than they did back when the rule was established. So today's retirees need to adjust their withdrawal strategies accordingly.

What should you do? Use the 4% rule as a starting point, but develop a withdrawal plan that better aligns with your circumstances. For example, if you're heavily invested in bonds, and they aren't paying much interest, start out by withdrawing 2% of your nest egg rather than 4%. Being conservative with your withdrawals will help sustain your nest egg, so it's there for you throughout retirement.

3. Am I underestimating my life expectancy?

Many seniors plan for something in the ballpark of a 20-year retirement, but for some folks, that's a dangerously low estimate. That's because one out of every four 65-year-olds today will live past the age of 90, while one in 10 will live past 95. If you're one of them, yet you retire in your mid-60s, you could easily end up in a situation where you run out of money with several years of retirement left ahead of you.

A better bet? Assess your health, and if it's relatively strong, assume the best when it comes to your lifespan. If you operate under the assumption that you'll live until 90 and pass away at 88, you'll have a little something left over to leave to your heirs. And that's a much more ideal scenario than spending down your savings and burdening your family with your bills in your late 80s — assuming you even have that option, which many seniors don't.

If there's one risk you can't afford to take as a senior, it's outliving your savings and scrambling in your old age. So don't put yourself in that situation. Assess your personal risk early on, and take steps to compensate. Otherwise, you could end up falling victim to the fate that's so many retirees' worst nightmare.

More:Personal debt: Are Americans responsible with their paychecks?

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More:How much will average Baby Boomer get from Social Security over lifetime?

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Nearly 1 in 4 Americans Has Done No Retirement Planning

It used to be that many American career paths included pensions. Employees would put in their time in the office or factory, and employers would take care of them when they got too old to work.

Today, jobs with defined-benefit pension plans are few and far between. Left to our own devices, are Americans taking care of their retirement needs? Our new survey says no.

"Companies have realized they can shift much of the risk and responsibility of managing a retirement plan to their employees by ditching the traditional defined-benefit plan for a defined-contribution plan," says Chartered Financial Analyst Phillip Christenson at Phillip James Financial in Plymouth, Minnesota. "While this isn't inherently a bad change, when combined with a general lack of financial education and low interest rates, it has contributed to a challenging retirement picture."

In an exclusive MoneyTips online survey, 452 Americans were asked about preparing for retirement. Some of those were already enjoying retirement, while others were decades away from their golden years.

We asked the 194 subjects yet to retire:

More than half (59.3%) revealed they had invested in a 401(k) or other retirement vehicle, which was the most popular response, followed by "Saved money" (39.7%), "Set up an IRA" (39.2%), "Invested in mutual funds" (32.0%), and "Participated in a Pension Plan" (26.8%). Nevertheless, nearly 1 in 4 (23.3%) admitted doing absolutely nothing to plan for retirement.

We also asked 258 current retirees:

Current retirees seem to have done a better job preparing, with less than 1 in 11 (8.9%) doing nothing to plan for retirement. More than half had invested in a 401(k) (57.4%), saved money (55.8%), participated in a pension plan (55.4%), and/or set up an IRA(50.8%). While those yet to retire were a little better at investing in a 401(k) or other retirement vehicle (59.3% vs. 57.4%), the future retirees had made fewer investments in IRAs, pensions, stocks, mutual funds, and bonds than current retirees had.

Says financial advisor Christenson, "One of my big concerns is not how a client is saving but whether they are saving enough. A retirement can be a 30-plus-year proposition. It's very hard to go back to work in your 80's if you realize you are running out of money."

We also asked those yet to retire:

The sad results are that more than 1 in 5 (21.1%) are not saving anything for retirement, and more than 1 in 3 (36.1%) are saving less than $100/month. Saving at least $100 but less than $1000 monthly was the most-popular answer (45.4%).

Commented Christenson, "We are heading towards a crisis with over a third of those surveyed saving less than $100 each month. This means their only chance at retirement is Social Security, which most likely will change by the time many people start drawing from it."

We broke down those numbers by gender, and found men are saving more than women are.

Nearly 1 in 4 women (23.9%) are not saving anything for retirement, compared to just 1 in 6 men (17.6%). Moreover, more than 4 in 10 women (41.3%) are saving less than $100 per month, compared to less than 3 in 10 men (29.4%). This could be because on average, women earn less than men do. When we looked at income, we saw that nearly half (47.2%) of people in families earning less than $100,000 annually were saving less than $100/month for retirement.

Added Christenson, "We are seeing more women as the primary and even sole bread-winners in a family. It really doesn't matter who is earning the money as long as the family is properly saving for retirement, education, and their other goals. A couple should plan together on what to spend their money on and how much to save. Getting on the same page with your significant other is crucial to implementing a savings plan."

See if your 401(k) needs fixing with a free analysis. For more of our exclusive retirement data and insights, visit MoneyTips Retirement Survey Findings.

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How Your House Can Save Your Retirement

Worried you’re going to run out of cash in retirement? The solution to your problem may be closer than you think.

After Joyce Ruvolo's husband passed away two years ago, she noticed a disturbing trend. "I found myself taking money out of the bank every month to pay the bills," says the 77-year resident of Boca Raton, Florida.

Unhappy with her cash flow situation, Ruvolo found a solution to her problem with Kathy Burns, a reverse mortgage loan specialist with On Q Financial. Burns helped set up a reverse mortgage, also known as a home equity conversion loan, which allowed Ruvolo to tap into the equity in her house and receive regular payments to supplement her income. "Kathy was wonderful, and the e

extra money I have in my pocket at the end of the month makes up the deficit I had before," she says.

[See: 10 Ways to Reduce Your Housing Costs in Retirement.]

Ruvolo's situation isn't unique, and finance experts say the biggest asset many seniors have is their home. By leveraging its value, those who are facing the prospect of afinancially rocky retirement may find they can live comfortably instead.

Using a house as a retirement fund. With traditional pensions disappearing and Social Security payments remaining relatively flat thanks to the current low-interest economic environment, some say home equity is the logical place to look for money in retirement. "Where have they saved most of the money in their life?" says Jamie Hopkins, an associate professor of taxation at American College and co-director of the New York Life Center for Retirement Income. "It's in their home."

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To tap into the value of their house, seniors could use one of the following products or strategies:

• Reverse mortgage
• Home equity line of credit
• Downsizing
• Home-sharing

Of these, reverse mortgages may be garnering the most attention. These loans allow seniors age 62 or older to receive payments based upon the value of their home and their age. Once the borrower passes away or moves out of the house, the loan must be repaid, typically within a year. To do so, the house may be sold or the loan refinanced in a conventional mortgage.

[See: 50 Affordable Places to Buy a Retirement Home in 2016.]

Not your 1980s reverse mortgages. While seniors like Ruvolo have warmed to reverse mortgages, others may be reluctant to sign up for a product that, in decades past, gained a reputation for saddling people with expensive loans that were inappropriate for their circumstances. However, Hopkins says that has changed. "It's not the reverse mortgage that existed in the 1980s."

Reza Jahangiri, CEO of reverse mortgage lender American Advisors Group, says today's loans come with consumer protections, such as financial counseling and a financial assessment, which weren't a part of older loans. What's more, these are non-recourse loans which means no one will end up paying more than a property's value. "If the loan amount is greater than the home value, the heirs aren't responsible [for the difference]," Jahangiri says.

Interest rates may be higher for reverse mortgages than for other mortgage products, and the loans may not make sense for seniors who expect to sell or move within the next few years. However, for those with small retirement funds and limited options, a reverse mortgage may make sense. "We have a mushrooming demographic of seniors, life expectancy is up and the savings picture is not robust," Jahangiri says. "It's become a reality that the reverse mortgage has become part of retirement planning."

[See: 10 Retirement Hot Spots in the U.S.]

Keep communication open with family members. Since a reverse mortgage could require the sale of a family home, seniors should keep their adult children aware of their plans. "It's very important they discuss it with their family," Ruvolo says. While children can't prevent a senior from taking out a reverse mortgage, keeping everyone informed avoids unpleasant surprises during a time of grief.

If family members don't want to lose the home, there is always an option to do a private reverse mortgage. These loans need to be professionally set up to avoid gift taxes, but they allow an adult child or other family member to make payments to a senior in exchange for equity and eventual ownership of the property. "The caveat is it's not common for kids to be in a position to advance hundreds of thousands to their parents," Jahangiri says.

For those who decide not to take out a reverse mortgage, taking out a home equity line of credit, selling a home or downsizing to a smaller residence are all ways to find the cash needed to boost meager retirement funds. "Figure out what you want in retirement," Hopkins says. "Once you figure out your goals, you can use [your house] to help you meet them."

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