A good place to start thinking about planning for your retirement is with the Social Security Planner. Here you can find tools and guides to help you think through this phase of your life. It also points out things you may want to consider as you prepare for the future.

If you are:

Looking for information, you can:

• Find your retirement age
• Estimate your life expectancy
• Use the Retirement Estimator and the other benefit calculators to test different retirement ages or future earnings amounts
• Learn about Social Security programs
• Find out what happens if you work after you retire or if you are already a Medicare Beneficiary
• Learn how certain types of earnings and pensions can affect your benefits.

Already near retirement age, you can:

• Discover your retirement options
• Get information about how members of your family may qualify for benefits
• Find instructions on how to apply for benefits and what supporting documents you may need to furnish
• Apply for retirement benefits

Close to age 65, you can find out how to apply for just Medicare. You may need to sign up for Medicare close to your 65th birthday, even if you will not be retired by that time.

• Some health insurance plans change automatically at age 65.
• If you are getting Social Security benefits when you turn 65, your Medicare Hospital Benefits will start automatically.