How much money does a couple need to retire comfortably? Benchmarks by age and planning tips

As a couple, so much of your life is planned together, from managing your home to mapping your future. Retirement is a key part of that. But it's easy to overlook details like how your retirement savings and spending will work together and what you'll do if one of you wants to retire earlier than the other.

Preparing for these possibilities can help you avoid surprises and give you confidence in making the most of what you have together. Here's what to know about how much money a couple needs to retire.

Planning together for retirement may not sound romantic, but aligning on goals and strategies is essential for long-term financial success. You want to know each other's dreams for the future and build plans that can help you achieve them. Maybe one of you wants to volunteer more, and the other wants to develop skills to turn a hobby into something more. You need to know if you both want to be close to family or if you want to travel abroad. 

Creating a plan together—including the financial details—can help you achieve those goals.

When you know what your plans are, you can strategize for saving, debt management, tax efficiency and more. These are the building blocks that ultimately determine your post-retirement life. Talking about these things early lets you work on them over time. That way, you'll be prepared to manage your money how you want when retirement arrives.

Whether you still have a few decades left or you're nearing retirement age, retirement is a new season of life with its own advantages and challenges—that in itself can seem intimidating. But fortunately, you can make a savings plan based on numbers right now. As your salary changes, you can revisit your retirement savings plan and adjust. Here’s what you should know about retirement savings milestones by decade to stay on track for a comfortable future.

When approaching this milestone, you're still establishing yourself in your career and setting the stage for future savings habits. Aim to save one year's combined salary by age 30.

Use this crucial season to begin pushing up the percentages you contribute to retirement savings whenever your budget allows, like right after a raise. Aim to hit a target of three times your combined salary by age 40.

Portfolios really pick up speed after you've been growing them for a couple of decades. Working with a financial advisor on strategies like tax-loss harvesting and rebalancing your portfolio can be helpful on your path to five to six times your combined salary by age 50.

Take advantage of the availability of catch-up contributions toward tax-advantaged accounts. Reallocate some reduced expenses toward savings, such as when children move out or finish college. Ideally, you can reach seven to eight times your combined salary by age 60.

Run some scenarios to see what it would take to reach 10 times your combined salary by age 70. These scenarios can help you decide about full-time or part-time work, as well as when to fully retire and move from saving to spending.

Retirement calculators show how different strategies impact your nest egg, monthly income and long-term spending power. The calculations allow you to adjust over time and see what an increase in savings or a change in retirement age could mean for your portfolio and available budget.

Some retirement calculators offer you an inflation adjustment or a rate-of-return-adjusted projection of retirement investments. Some retirement calculators may assume, for instance, that 10% is a common average return. But it's smart to calculate at a lower, 7% rate of return to allow for 3% loss to inflation. You can adjust those numbers to assess the impact of inflation risk and potentially higher or lower rates of return.

Small changes in contributions could boost your retirement accounts in major ways. For instance, increasing your monthly contributions from $500 to $1,000 a month and sustaining that contribution for 30 years can yield more than $700,000 in additional retirement portfolio value, on average. Even if you're just focusing on savings later in life, catch-up contributions still can make a huge difference: Boosting your savings from $1,000 to $2,000 a month can yield $200,000 in just 10 years, for instance.

Several factors—like lifestyle, location, health care costs and income sources—shape your retirement budget and savings needs. Your current budget can serve as a guide, with adjustments based on how you'll spend your time and money differently in retirement. Factor these elements into how you plan for retirement, knowing your budget may not look like anyone else's.

Every budget is like a fingerprint, but most people change at least a few line items when they move from their working years to retirement. You can adjust your retirement plan based on things like whether you want to prioritize more fishing trips, for instance. While travel could require more funds, maybe you'll cut your commuting budget or live somewhere you won't need to drive as much. Then, you can reallocate that money toward vacations or something else you care about, like monthly lunches with friends.

Where you live has a big impact on your monthly budget in retirement. If you know your housing will change during retirement, such as moving to live close to family members or selling a large home and downsizing, project those cost changes and factor them in.

The amount you want to save depends heavily on the age at which you want to stop working. Retiring at age 60 requires a larger portfolio than at age 70. It's also smart to put safeguards in place to make sure you're not spending down your retirement accounts entirely if you live longer than expected.

Thinking ahead for retirement spending involves considering current health conditions you manage, any conditions that run in your family and the specifics of the health care insurance you'll qualify to receive during retirement. Consider long-term care insurance and how it might smooth out some major unexpected expenses. In general, planning around a need to spend on health care costs can provide reassurance. If you don't need to spend as much as you plan, that's a positive outcome as well.

Once you have a rough estimate of what you plan to spend monthly, it's wise to look beyond your expected drawdown from a 401(K) or other retirement account to other potential retirement income sources. If you qualify for a pension, for example, look into what those benefits are likely to contribute to your monthly income. These sources of additional income can add wiggle room to your budget.

It can be disconcerting to no longer be earning an income. During retirement, you'll decide how much of your investments you're comfortable withdrawing each year and divide that by 12 to generate your monthly income before other sources like Social Security. Here are some helpful guidelines for how you may withdraw from your retirement savings.

The 4% rule is a popular withdrawal strategy that suggests taking 4% or less from your retirement portfolio annually to help your savings last throughout retirement. Given past average market returns, financial advisors reason that the remaining assets each year (the 96%) will stay invested in the market. Due to volatility from inflation and markets, as well as simply due to lower risk tolerance, some people prefer to withdraw less than 4% per year.

Another valuable guideline is that many retirees will need about 80% of what they typically made when working. With reduced expenses associated with work and no longer needing to set aside savings toward retirement—plus any additional benefits like a paid-off mortgage—couples often spend less in retirement. You may have good reason to expect to spend more or less due to your own personal financial factors, but the 80% rule for retirement can be a good place to start.

If they have the option to do so, many people consider withdrawing less if they happen to have rough market years early in retirement. The sequence of returns risk means withdrawing too much during years with market losses can reduce the value of your portfolio at a time when you want the portfolio to positively compound returns. While withdrawing less when you have the option is always a valuable way to preserve your savings, there are ways to rebalance and diversify during down markets that your financial advisor can explain.

Social Security payments are determined by your income during certain years of your working life as well as the age at which you opt to claim benefits. Understanding what benefits you can expect in context with the wider principles of retirement savings for couples can help you decide when to apply for benefits, for yourself and as a couple.

The best starting point is for both spouses to use available Social Security benefits calculations to estimate what their benefits will be, given the age they are considering to retire. When you begin benefits, you have a few set options for stopping and restarting benefits, but making the decision once and for all will save you some paperwork and effort. It's worth thinking through carefully.

If it becomes clear you'd benefit from taking Social Security benefits months or years after you officially stop working, make sure you've considered how your budget will be impacted by that reduced or delayed income. There's no reason for such a choice to cause stress if you have the option to think ahead and put some plans in place.

Many couples plan on additional sources of income in retirement, including annuities, income from rental properties and other investments. It's a great idea to make a comprehensive accounting of any assets you think will contribute to your retirement wealth. The variety of investments you accumulate over the years can be converted into retirement income that helps you preserve your long-term investments so they can last a lifetime. 

Factors like the physicality of your job, how much you're enjoying it and your list of retirement goals all impact the age you might want to retire. No matter the age gap between you and your spouse, getting the most from retirement requires considering whether you're going to retire at the same time or not—and how you want your life to look during any seasons when one of you is working and the other is retired.

Creating a joint vision of a positive retirement experience can start with considering how and when you each might prefer to retire. You can plan to achieve goals you share as a couple, like travelling together or moving away from where your current jobs are located, after you both retire. You can front-load activities and goals that matter to the person who is retiring first—things that can be done while the other partner continues working.

If either of you is eligible for spousal benefits, consider how you might take those benefits strategically. If you can delay a benefit and receive a higher payment as a result, for instance, that could work in favor of your wider financial picture as a family.

Every couple is unique, so there’s no universal savings target—but setting personalized goals and a flexible spending plan can help you retire comfortably and confidently. Guidance and thoughtfulness can help you choose your target retirement savings amounts and a prudent budget that helps you realize your vision for retirement.

Budgeting now to save a substantial percentage of your income toward retirement investments frees you in many ways. As retirement draws closer, you can start getting more detailed about how you want to spend your money month to month, building confidence that your savings are sufficient to last.

A retirement strategy enables so many opportunities: You might want to help launch children and grandchildren into adulthood with helpful funding. You might contribute to your favorite nonprofit organization in ways that help them help others even more. 

A Thrivent financial advisor can help you piece together the many factors of retirement savings and spending as a couple to help you build confidence and gain clarity.