Retirement Income: How to Build and Protect Your Income in Retirement

When you stop working, your retirement income, the steady money you receive after leaving the workforce to cover living expenses. Also known as post-work income, it's not just what you saved—it's how it's structured, when it starts, and how long it lasts. Most people assume retirement means living off savings alone, but that’s risky. Real retirement income comes from multiple sources working together: Social Security, pensions, annuities, and investment withdrawals. Each has rules, timing, and tax impacts you can’t afford to ignore.

Take Social Security, a government program that pays monthly benefits to retirees based on lifetime earnings. Also known as SSA payments, it’s the foundation for most Americans, but claiming early cuts your benefit by up to 30%. Waiting until 70 can boost it by 24%—a difference of thousands per year. Then there’s pension, a defined benefit plan where your employer pays you a fixed amount each month after retirement. Also known as defined benefit plan, it’s rare today but still powerful when you have one. And annuities, contracts with insurance companies that turn your savings into guaranteed monthly payments. Also known as income annuities, they’re not for everyone, but they solve the problem of outliving your money.

These pieces don’t work in isolation. If you rely only on Social Security, you’ll likely struggle. If you withdraw too much from your investments too fast, you risk running out. The best retirement income plans layer these sources: use Social Security as your base, tap pensions if you have them, consider an annuity for guaranteed floor income, and use your savings for flexibility. It’s not about picking one—it’s about balancing them. And it’s not just about how much you save, but how you turn that money into reliable cash flow. That’s where most people get stuck. They know how to save, but not how to convert it into something that pays every month, for life.

You’ll find real examples below—how people actually use these tools, what went wrong, and what worked. No theory. No fluff. Just what people did to make their retirement income last.