What should I do 10 years before retirement?

Ten years out, the highest-leverage moves are: pick a realistic spending number and the savings target it implies, choose a candidate retirement age and stress-test it against a bad sequence of returns, and start mapping the low-income window between retirement and age 73 for Roth conversions. The decisions you make now still have a decade to compound, which is what makes this the leverage point rather than the panic point.

Is 10 years enough time to prepare for retirement?

Yes. Ten years is enough time for additional contributions and market growth to meaningfully change your trajectory, and enough time to restructure where your money sits (taxable vs. tax-deferred vs. Roth) before withdrawals begin. It is the last decade where your savings rate is still a bigger lever than your withdrawal strategy, so it is the most valuable planning window you have left.

When should I start Roth conversions before retirement?

The prime window for Roth conversions is the low-income years after you stop working but before Required Minimum Distributions begin at age 73. Ten years out, the task is not to convert yet but to plan the runway: build up a taxable or cash bridge so you can live on low taxable income early in retirement, leaving room to convert tax-deferred dollars at the 12% bracket instead of paying 22% or more on RMDs later.

How do I know if I can retire in 10 years?

Model it. Enter your current balances, your realistic annual contributions for the next decade, your expected spending, and a candidate retirement age, then run the projection to age 95. If the portfolio survives a conservative return assumption and a bad early sequence, the date is plausible. If it depletes, you have ten years to close the gap by saving more, spending less, working longer, or some combination, which is exactly why you model it now rather than at the finish line.

Does sequence of returns risk matter 10 years before retirement?

It matters most in the window that spans roughly the last few working years and the first decade of retirement, so years 8 to 12 around your retirement date are the danger zone. A market crash early in that window, when your balance is largest and you are about to start drawing on it, does far more damage than the same crash later. Planning ten years out means you still have time to build the cash buffer and withdrawal flexibility that blunt it.

Retirement Planning Guide

10 years to retirement: what to think about

At ten years out, the moves you make still have a decade to compound, and you finally know your spending well enough to plan with real numbers instead of guesses. This guide lays out the decade as a countdown: what to settle now, what can wait until you're closer, and a link to the deeper guide behind each decision.

Why a decade out is the leverage point Years 10–7: set the target Years 6–4: stress-test & open the tax runway Years 3–1: lock the final levers Pick an age and pressure-test it The 10-year checklist at a glance Model your 10-year horizon

Why a decade out is the leverage point

A decade is long enough that what you do now still compounds, and short enough that the picture is no longer abstract, which makes the ten-year mark the most valuable planning window you have left.

Earlier than this, retirement is a spreadsheet of guesses: you don't know your spending, health, or career arc well enough to model it. Later, the big levers are spent: too little time for contributions to grow, so you take the portfolio you have rather than the one you could have built. At ten years, both shrink: you can estimate spending with conviction, and a decade of saving and growth can still change the outcome.

It's organized as a countdown rather than a flat list because the decisions aren't all due at once: some want a decade to work, others only make sense as the date nears. If you'd rather anchor on your age, the companion guide retirement planning at 50 covers the same ground from the age-50 starting line.

The order is the point

Settle your number first: the spending level and portfolio it implies. Every later decision (retirement age, withdrawal order, Social Security) only makes sense once you know the figure you're aiming at.

Years 10–7: set the target

The first job is the number: not a magazine benchmark, but your number, built from your expected spending and the income that covers it. Everything downstream depends on getting it roughly right.

Start with spending, not savings: someone who'll spend $50,000 a year needs roughly half the portfolio of someone at $100,000. How much you need to retire turns annual spending into a target balance, and safe withdrawal rate explains why 4% is a starting point, not a law, over a 30-plus-year retirement.

With a target in hand, pick a provisional retirement age and a savings rate you can sustain. At ten years out, your annual contribution is usually a bigger lever than your assumed rate of return, so be honest about what you can put away. This first estimate doesn't have to be perfect; it has to be real enough to test.

Years 6–4: stress-test & open the tax runway

Around the midpoint of the decade, the work shifts from "what's the plan" to "does the plan survive a bad decade." This is also when you start positioning your accounts for the low-income window after you stop working.

A plan that works on average can still fail in practice. The biggest threat is sequence of returns risk: a crash just as you stop working does far more damage than the same crash a decade later, because it lands when your balance is largest and you're about to draw on it. That danger window, roughly years 8 to 12 around your retirement date, puts you inside it now. Stress-testing your plan against a bad early sequence tells you whether your target has margin to spare or needs another year of work.

The second task is tax positioning. The years after you retire but before Required Minimum Distributions begin at age 73 are usually your lowest-income years ever, and the cheapest time to move money from tax-deferred to Roth. A Roth conversion strategy can fill the 12% bracket (which tops out around $100,800 for a married couple in 2026) at today's rates instead of paying 22% or more on RMDs later. Using that window means having somewhere low-tax to draw from early, so plan which accounts to withdraw from first now, while you can still steer contributions into the right buckets.

Years 3–1: lock the final levers

In the last few years, the open questions become concrete decisions with deadlines: when to claim Social Security, how to bridge healthcare, where to live, and how to keep IRMAA and inflation from eroding the plan.

Social Security is the biggest single lever left. Claiming at 62 instead of your full retirement age permanently cuts your benefit by roughly 30%, while delaying past full retirement age adds about 8% a year up to 70. When to start Social Security covers the breakeven math, but the decision interacts with everything else here: claiming early can ease portfolio withdrawals during a bad sequence, while delaying buys the largest inflation-protected income stream you can own.

If you're retiring before 65, the healthcare bridge is non-negotiable. ACA marketplace premiums for a couple in their early 60s can run $12,000–$20,000 a year before Medicare starts, and because subsidies depend on your taxable income, your withdrawal order and Roth balances directly shape the bill. Our retire-at-60 guide covers bridging those pre-Medicare years. Where you live matters too: nine states levy no income tax and many others exempt Social Security or pension income, so check your state's retirement tax treatment before you commit. Finally, plan for two slow leaks: inflation, which can nearly double your spending need over a long retirement, and IRMAA Medicare surcharges, where a single dollar of extra income can push you across a cliff into higher premiums.

IRMAA looks back two years

Your Medicare premiums at 65 are set by your income at 63: IRMAA uses the tax return from two years earlier. A big Roth conversion or asset sale in those run-up years can quietly raise your Part B and Part D premiums once you enroll.

Pick an age and pressure-test it

Most of the decisions above hinge on one choice: the age you actually stop working. The gap between two adjacent ages is rarely small: each extra year adds contributions and compounding, avoids a year of withdrawals, and can lift your Social Security benefit. Pick a candidate, then read the guide for that exact age:

If you're torn between two dates, retire at 60 vs 65 runs the same person through both timelines and measures the gap in dollars: a useful template for weighing any two ages against each other.

The 10-year checklist at a glance

The whole countdown in one place. Use it as a map; each line links to the guide that does the real work.

Years 10–7 — Set the target

• Estimate retirement spending and size the target — how much to retire
• Sanity-check the draw with a safe withdrawal rate
• Pick a provisional retirement age and a sustainable savings rate

Years 6–4 — Stress-test & open the tax runway

• Test the date against sequence risk — stress-test your plan
• Map the low-income window for Roth conversions
• Plan which accounts to draw first and steer contributions accordingly

Years 3–1 — Lock the final levers

• Decide your Social Security claim age
• Build the pre-65 healthcare bridge if retiring early
• Confirm your state tax treatment and plan around inflation and IRMAA

Model your 10-year horizon

A checklist tells you what to think about; a projection tells you whether the plan holds. The calculator runs a 10-year accumulation into a 30-year drawdown with real federal and state tax math, so you can watch your specific numbers play out to age 95 and see exactly where the margin is thin.

We've pre-loaded a representative 10-years-out scenario: a married couple at 55 planning to retire at 65, contributing $25,000 a year. Open it, then swap in your balances, spending, and target age to make it yours.

Model a 10-Year Horizon →