7 Retirement Ages You Can’t Afford to Miss
Knoxville Financial Q&A Episode 12 | The 7 Retirement Ages You Can’t Afford To Miss.
August 24, 2026
Retirement planning involves more than choosing a retirement date. Several important ages can affect when you access retirement accounts, claim Social Security, enroll in Medicare, make qualified charitable distributions, and begin taking required minimum distributions.
In this episode of the Knoxville Financial Q&A Show, Paul Ragone and Brian Duncan discuss seven important retirement ages and explain why each can matter when building a retirement plan.
The conversation begins at age 50 with catch-up contributions and moves through the Rule of 55, age 59½ and retirement account withdrawals, Social Security beginning at age 62, Medicare at age 65, qualified charitable distributions at age 70½, and required minimum distributions at age 73 or 75 depending on your birth year.
More importantly, these decisions don't exist independently. Social Security can affect your income. Retirement account withdrawals can affect your taxes. Income can affect Medicare premiums. Roth conversions can affect future required minimum distributions. And charitable planning may influence how retirement account distributions are handled.
For people approaching retirement in Knoxville, Tennessee, understanding how these different pieces interact can be just as important as understanding the individual rules.
Watch Episode 12 of the Knoxville Financial Q&A Show above to learn why retirement planning should ideally begin well before retirement.
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Transcript
All right, welcome to episode 12 of the Knoxville Financial Q&A Show. I'm your host, Paul. And I'm Brian. And today's episode is titled "The Seven Retirement Ages You Can't Afford to Miss."
Yeah. And I think some of these are pretty important. And unfortunately, the government didn't make it easy for us and just make it just one simple age. There's multiple ages, seven to be exact. Actually, there's a little bit more than that, but that we're going to talk about today and why they're important.
All right, so let's start with the youngest one. Well, the first one is age 50 because that's basically when the tax code says you're getting closer to retirement, we'll let you save a little bit more money. Yeah. And that's where catch-up contributions come into play. So 50 or older, mainly we're talking about their ages. You really want to start it at 50 to take advantage of everything. But that's where you're allowed to put extra money in all of your qualified stuff.
And what we mean by qualified is like IRAs, 401(k)s, 457s, 403(b)s, all the alphanumeric that designate retirement accounts. Yeah. I don't particularly like the term catch-up because it sounds like you did something wrong. You could have done everything perfectly for 25 years. It just allows you to add extra money if you have it. Yeah. It's the hall pass from the IRS to say, "Hey, I'm going to throw some extra money in my retirement. Take advantage of it." All right.
Yeah. And this could be pretty important because typically speaking, 50-year-olds are reaching some of their peak earning potential. Maybe the kids are out of the house. Hopefully. Yeah. Hopefully. Tuition, you know, like if you were a doctor or some sort of program where you acquired a pretty hefty amount of student loans, hopefully the student loan debt's gone. Mortgage, hopefully the mortgage is paid off. But yeah, it becomes pretty important because you have a significant amount of hopefully some spare income to put towards retirement.
Yeah. And if you're 5, 10, 15 years away from retirement, those additional contributions can really add up and matter. Yeah. So when it comes down to planning, the question is not can I contribute more, it's kind of where should we put it. I think a big overlooked factor is, you know, yes, you're given the freedom to do those catch-up contributions. Maybe because of those high peak earnings you need the additional money in retirement in a traditional to try to shave some money off your taxes. Or maybe you've maxed out everything and you still want to save more and you got to look at stuff like the HSA.
I think what Brian just said is really important because more isn't the strategy, it's where you're saving the money that's important. So, what's the next age? Age 55.
The rule of 55. This gives you the ability to, if you are planning on retiring early, where you don't have to wait till age 59 and a half to access some of your qualified money like your 401(k) plan. We're not talking about IRAs or anything like that. 401(k)s, 403(b)s, basically work plans. If you plan on retiring early and you leave your employer during the calendar year when you turn age 55, on some plans, on most plans, you have access to those funds without getting the 10% early withdrawal penalty.
Yeah. And so the type of account matters, when you retire matters, the age you are matters, all of that matters. So, this is one of those make sure you get with your person that you're working with and start having a conversation of will my plan allow me to access this money? Yeah. And just to reiterate, we're not talking about IRAs. Yep. This is only work plans. Yeah. Work plans.
Otherwise, you're going to get hit with a 10% early withdrawal penalty. What's important about this from a planning perspective is when people come in here and they want to roll their 401(k) over to an IRA, well then you lose that ability, right? You have to wait till 59 and a half if you do that. So sometimes it's worth looking at the plan documents or the way we work with our clients. We figure out when they want to retire. If it doesn't make sense to roll the plan over, we won't do it if they're going to need access to it.
All right. Next up, we have age 59 and a half. That seems to be the one that everybody seems to know. Got to love it. Why a half? Got to love, like, leave it to our government. 59 is too young, 60 is too old, I guess. So, me right in the middle. Like, come on now.
So, basically, once you reach 59 and a half, you can avoid the 10% early withdrawal penalty that we were just talking about at age 55 from all your qualified plans. Yeah. So that's where I would just say once you reach the 59 and a half mark, you can basically touch retirement money without penalty. Not tax-free, right? Not tax-free. Still got to pay the taxes.
Yep. So if you have an IRA, 401(k), or a 401(k) that you roll to an IRA, you have access to it. You're still, like Brian just said, you're still going to pay taxes on it, but you will avoid the 10% early withdrawal penalty. In the eyes of the IRS, you're officially retirement age.
And so I would also add into this other important factors at 59 and a half. Was, you know, fallout from the 2008 where people had predominantly all of their money in work-related retirement plans and they couldn't get professional money management and maybe they were in index funds and just got hammered during the 2008. They started allowing in-service distributions, or I should say making it mandatory that you can actually go seek out professional money management.
Some allow you before that. That's why we don't want to bring it up in other ones, but after 59 and a half, they're required to. And so it allows you to, while you're still employed, while you're still getting a match, move any portion, including all of it if you want to, out of your 401(k) into an IRA and go seek money management and go seek help.
And I will say what Brian just mentioned, maybe 10% of the people that come in here know that even exists. Yeah. Most people don't even know that exists. Yeah. So that way you don't have to sit there and go, you know, hey, I'm working at my job. I want to work for another three more years, but I've got this million bucks or two million bucks saved up and it's only in retirement. What do I do?
Yeah. I mean, you could literally withdraw—not withdraw—roll over the whole amount and still keep your match. Still keep your match, still keep all your work plans, still keep all the benefits. You just get to go take the nest egg that you have and go get it managed and not have to necessarily be exposed to all the ups and downs.
Yeah. And let's say you work another five years and you're still contributing, then you just take the rest of it and roll it over into the same managed account.
Yeah. Some other important things to think about in that 59 and a half. If you are taking money out while you're working, especially, that does count as income, right? You're getting hit with taxes, but it also adds to your income. So things like Medicare and tax brackets and all of that has to come into consideration. So if you're taking money out and still working, it affects way more than just taxes. Yeah. So you're avoiding the 10% early withdrawal penalty if you are doing a withdrawal, but you're affecting other parts of your financial plan at that point.
Yeah. And that takes us to probably one of the biggest ages of all, which is 62. And that's the age at which you can start taking your Social Security benefits. It's pretty important, too, because you do not have to take it at 62. That's just the first chance that you get to take it.
Yeah. This is where we see people make that decision based on emotions rather than good planning. Yeah. Because a lot of them sit there and go, "Oh, well, now I can take it, so I'm just going to take it." They don't think about all the other aspects that come along with it. I paid into it. I want my money. So, we have people that come in here and say they're taking it at 62 because they don't know how long they're going to live. What they don't realize is that's a permanent decision with a lot of moving parts.
Yeah. Because accepting at 62 generally means you're going to be taking a much lower payout than if you waited till 70. Okay. And for people born 1960 or later, full retirement age is currently 67. So, if you don't take it at 62 and you can wait until age 70, that gives you an eight-year window where the amount that's getting paid to you is increasing each of those years.
Yeah. Yeah. So, then you reach your max payout. So, the answer isn't automatically turn on at 62 then. No, it's also not turn it on at 70.
Yeah. Yeah. And that's important because when it comes to financial planning, we also believe that there's, you know, not one Social Security claiming age that's right for everybody. You got to look at your health, longevity, other assets, whether you're still working, taxes, your spouse's benefit, survivor benefits, and what happens to the surviving spouse if one of you dies first. And if you're married, this really becomes a household decision rather than any independent decision.
All right. Now, we get to age 65, and this is where Medicare enters the conversation. Yeah. And there's a little caveat in here, and not to muddy the waters, but the age of 63 is built in within this and matters as well, mainly because Medicare has a look-back period of the two previous year tax returns. Which is why it matters.
Yeah. So, you could potentially get penalized on your Medicare premiums because you did a large Roth conversion two years before you started receiving Medicare. Yep. And so, this is why planning becomes important. And it's not just, okay, I'm 65. I need to start taking Medicare. There's so many things that you have to consider, like when to do Roth conversions. How much should that Roth conversion be? Is it going to screw up your Medicare premiums? Because you're going to get penalized for having too much income.
Yeah. And the IRS is not going to send you, or Social Security Administration is not going to send you a card when you're 63 years old and say, "Hey, by the way, you've got your Medicare deadlines coming up for 65. So, don't take out too much money." Yeah. This just reminds me why retirement planning is not investment planning. This is retirement planning.
You have to plan for these things. You could make a decision that makes perfect sense when you're only looking at income taxes. But then we look at Medicare, then we look at Social Security, then we look at capital gains, and suddenly that answer might be different.
Yeah. And at 65, Medicare itself becomes an actual planning point. And one thing we'd really like to encourage is do not wait till the last minute to learn how Medicare works. Yeah. Start looking at it before 65, before you get to the deadline. Understand your enrollment windows. Understand Parts A and B. Understand what happens if you're still working and covered by an employer plan. Understand how an HSA fits into it. Understand Medicare Advantage versus Original Medicare. And then supplemental coverage.
You might retire at age 62, but your spouse might retire at age 67. And if they're still working and you're covered under their health insurance plan, maybe age 65 isn't the right time to take Medicare. Yeah, there's all kinds of scenarios. And it's not just a simple answer of take it at 65.
So the next one is another half birthday, and that is age 70 and a half. And this is the age that most people used to associate with required minimum distributions, which is no longer the case. In this case, it's for qualified charitable distributions.
Yeah. And if you're charitably inclined, this is something you should at least understand. Under the current rules, once you're eligible, you're able to make qualified charitable distributions regularly from an IRA to your charity of choice. And just depending on the circumstances, it can be just more tax efficient. And that's, I mean, that's the whole reason to know the 70 and a half now. There's no reason to know it at this point other than that.
I think the main thing here is you don't look at this as a way of trying to save on taxes or something like that. You need to be charitably inclined to begin with. Correct. Right. And then if you are, there's a tax-efficient way of doing that.
And our next age is RMDs. And I specifically didn't say an age there because required minimum distributions could be for 73 or 75 depending on the years you were born. Yeah. Basically, Uncle Sam says you've received the tax benefit for who knows how long. Far too long.
Mhm. But I think the bigger planning point here is you shouldn't wait for your first RMD before you start planning for RMDs. And that's where Roth conversions come in. Yep. Maybe strategic IRA withdrawals could work. Maybe charitable planning. Maybe delaying Social Security while drawing from retirement accounts makes sense in a particular situation. Maybe none of those things make sense. The point is that you've got a planning window.
Yeah. And that's why it matters because once the RMDs start, you have less flexibility because now the government's telling you that you have a certain amount that has to come out.
Exactly. Which brings us back to the entire point of this episode. None of these ages really should be looked at by themselves because they're all connected. Your Social Security decision affects your income. Your retirement account withdrawals affect your taxes. Your taxes can affect your Medicare premiums. Your Roth conversions can affect future RMDs. Your RMDs can affect taxes later in your retirement. Your charitable giving can potentially affect how you handle those distributions. Everything is connected, which is why retirement planning should ideally start well before retirement.
By the way, we do have an RMD calculator on our website. I'll put the link down below.
With all of these numbers and ages that we talked about, the government will always do what the government does and probably change them. So, it's good to know that this is a good frame of reference that's pertinent for today. It could definitely change. So, keep in mind all of these need to be looked at closely whenever you're dealing with retirement, doing your due diligence and your planning.
And so with that being said, signing off. Signing off.