Key Points
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Review your withdrawal strategy to make sure it still works for you.
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Have a plan for when you’ll claim Social Security if you’re not already signed up.
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Ensure you have at least a year or two of cash savings on hand before you retire.
After a long career, retirement is just around the corner, but now’s not the time to let up on financial planning. Use the last few months of 2026 to double-check everything and ensure you have a strategy that will help your savings last for the rest of your life.
Here are three moves worth making within the next few months so you can enter the next phase of your life stress-free.
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1. Make sure you’re comfortable with your retirement withdrawal strategy
Review how much you plan to withdraw in your first year of retirement and make sure you’re still comfortable living off this amount. Expenses have increased a lot in 2026, and what might have seemed like an adequate amount of savings before may no longer feel like enough.
If you’re worried that your retirement budget may be too tight, you might have to rethink your plans. Pushing back your retirement date by a few months may give you additional time to save while reducing the amount you need to cover your costs.
2. Have a plan for when you’ll claim Social Security if you’re not already
Social Security will likely form a vital part of your retirement plan, and when you sign up affects how far your checks go. You probably already know what to expect from your benefits if you’re already claiming. If not, familiarize yourself with how much you’ll get from the program before you retire so you can budget accordingly.
The easiest way to do this is to create a free my Social Security account. There’s a benefit estimator tool here that can give you a rough idea of how much you’ll qualify for at every claiming age.
3. Establish a cash buffer if you don’t already have one
It’s smart to have a year or two of expenses in cash before you retire. If you don’t, and your investments plummet just as you’re about to leave the workforce, you may have to sell assets when you don’t want to, locking in the loss. Having cash on hand gives you more flexibility about when you sell your investments, and that can help you stretch your savings further.
If you don’t already have cash savings on hand, use the time you have left before retirement to start building this cushion. If need be, you can push your retirement date back a bit to give yourself more time to prepare.
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