The short version: the four years from 60 to 63 let you put $35,750 into a workplace plan instead of $32,500 — the single largest catch-up window in the tax code, and it disappears at 64. Medicare enrollment runs on a seven-month clock with lifetime penalties for missing it. And the Medicare surcharge you pay in 2026 is based on your 2024 income, which means the planning you do now affects 2028.
The last tuition payment clears and the household budget suddenly has room in it. What you do with that room over the next decade will matter more than any investment decision you make in retirement.
The 60-to-63 window
Most people know about catch-up contributions at 50. Fewer know that the 2022 retirement law created a bigger one for a narrow age band.
If you attain age 60, 61, 62, or 63 during 2026, your catch-up is $11,250 rather than $8,000. Stacked on the $24,500 elective deferral, that is $35,750 into a 401(k), 403(b), or 457(b) in a single year. Total annual additions including employer money can reach $83,250.
At 64 it reverts to the ordinary $8,000. There is no grandfathering. Four years, then the door closes.
One catch that surprises higher earners: if your FICA wages from that employer exceeded $150,000 in 2025, your 2026 catch-up contributions must go in as Roth. Not optional. If you were counting on the deduction, run the numbers again.
Outside the workplace plan, the IRA limit is $7,500 with a $1,100 catch-up at 50 or older. Our guides to Christian 401(k) options and Christian IRA investing cover where to put the money once you have decided how much.
A reality check on where people actually stand: Vanguard’s 2026 data puts the median 401(k) balance for ages 55 to 64 at $107,269. The average is $305,006, pulled upward by a small number of very large accounts. If your balance is closer to the median, you are ordinary, and these four years are the most valuable ones you have left.
Medicare’s seven-month clock
Your Initial Enrollment Period spans seven months: the three months before the month you turn 65, that month, and the three after.
Timing inside that window changes your start date. Sign up before your birthday month and coverage begins the month you turn 65. Sign up during or after it and coverage starts the following month. If you need continuous coverage, enroll early in the window.
Miss it entirely and you wait for the General Enrollment Period, January 1 through March 31, with coverage starting the month after you sign up. Note that carefully: the old rule that pushed coverage to July 1 is obsolete, and plenty of websites still describe it.
Still working at 65 with group coverage? A Special Enrollment Period lets you delay, and it ends eight months after the group plan or the employment ends, whichever comes first. One expensive trap: COBRA is not group health plan coverage for this purpose. It does not extend your window. People lose years of penalty-free enrollment to that single misunderstanding.
The penalties are permanent, not one-time. Part B costs 10% more for every full twelve-month period you were eligible and unenrolled, for life. Medicare’s own 2026 example: someone 24 months late pays the $202.90 premium plus $40.58, or $243.48 a month, forever. Part D adds 1% of the national base premium for every uncovered month, triggered after 63 days without creditable drug coverage, also permanent.
What Medicare actually costs in 2026
| Item | 2026 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Part B standard premium | $202.90/mo | $185.00 |
| Part B annual deductible | $283 | $257 |
| Part A inpatient deductible per benefit period | $1,736 | $1,676 |
| Part D out-of-pocket cap | $2,100 | $2,000 |
| Part D maximum deductible | $615 | — |
About 99% of people pay no Part A premium. And original Medicare has no annual out-of-pocket limit without either a Medigap policy or a Medicare Advantage plan — the single most important thing to understand before choosing between them.
IRMAA looks back two years
Higher earners pay a surcharge on Parts B and D called IRMAA, and it is calculated from your income two years prior. Your 2026 surcharge comes off your 2024 tax return.
| 2024 MAGI, single | 2024 MAGI, joint | Part B total/mo | Part D add-on |
|---|---|---|---|
| ≤ $109,000 | ≤ $218,000 | $202.90 | $0 |
| $109,001–$137,000 | $218,001–$274,000 | $284.10 | $14.50 |
| $137,001–$171,000 | $274,001–$342,000 | $405.80 | $37.50 |
| $171,001–$205,000 | $342,001–$410,000 | $527.50 | $60.40 |
| $205,001–$499,999 | $410,001–$749,999 | $649.20 | $83.30 |
| ≥ $500,000 | ≥ $750,000 | $689.90 | $91.00 |
The planning implication is the whole point: a move you make in 2026 to reduce income affects your 2028 premium, not this year’s. Roth conversions, capital gains, a business sale — all of it lands two years later. Roughly 8% of enrollees pay a surcharge.
Married filing separately is a genuine cliff rather than a gradual scale, with only three tiers. Above $109,000 you jump straight to a $446.30 Part B surcharge. If you file separately for any reason, check this before you sign.
What healthcare costs over a retirement
Two credible estimates, measuring different things, and mixing them up is the most common error in retirement planning content.
Fidelity’s annual estimate says a single 65-year-old retiring in 2025 should expect $172,500 in lifetime medical costs. That figure assumes original Medicare Parts A, B, and D, and covers premiums, copays, and out-of-pocket medical and drug costs. It explicitly excludes long-term care. It is also a per-person figure — doubling it for a couple is your inference, not Fidelity’s.
EBRI’s March 2026 brief takes a narrower cut: savings needed at 65 to cover premiums and median drug spending only, with a Medigap Plan G policy. For a couple, $267,000 for a 50% chance of adequacy, $405,000 for 90%. With Medicare Advantage instead, $135,000 and $203,000.
Those numbers are not comparable to Fidelity’s and should never appear in the same column. What they share is a message: healthcare is a major line item, not a rounding error, and an HSA is the only account that goes in pre-tax and comes out tax-free for medical costs. The 2026 limits are $4,400 self-only and $8,750 family, plus $1,000 more at 55. A couple both over 55 can contribute $10,750 — but it requires two separate accounts, because there is no such thing as a joint HSA.
Long-term care sits outside all of this. CareScout’s 2025 survey puts assisted living at a $74,400 annual median and a semi-private nursing home room at $114,975. Neither Medicare nor the estimates above cover it.
Downsizing, and an exclusion frozen since 1997
Selling the family home is often the largest single financial event of this decade. You can exclude $250,000 of gain if single, $500,000 if married filing jointly, provided you owned and used the home as your principal residence for at least two of the five years before the sale. On a joint return either spouse can satisfy the ownership test, but both must satisfy the use test. Available once every two years.
Those dollar figures have not moved since sales after May 6, 1997. They are not indexed for inflation, and the 2025 tax law left them alone. Nearly thirty years of housing appreciation later, a couple in a long-held home in an expensive market can blow through $500,000 of gain and owe capital gains tax on a house they bought to raise children in. Track your basis, keep receipts for improvements, and get an estimate before you list.
The question underneath the numbers
“Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12). The psalm is not morbid. It is arguing that a clear-eyed sense of limited time is what makes wisdom possible — that people who plan as though time were unlimited plan badly.
This decade is where that lands with unusual force. The financial questions are solvable with a spreadsheet. The harder ones are not. What is the money for now? The mortgage is nearly gone, the children are launched, income is at its peak, and for the first time in twenty-five years the household has genuine surplus. That surplus is either directed on purpose or absorbed quietly by a bigger house and better vacations.
Scripture keeps pushing the horizon past the account balance. “A good person leaves an inheritance for their children’s children” (Proverbs 13:22) — two generations out, which is longer than most retirement plans reach. And for those over 70½, qualified charitable distributions let you send up to $111,000 a year straight from an IRA to charity in 2026, excluded from income entirely rather than merely deducted. Done in the window between 70½ and the start of required distributions at 73, it also shrinks every future required withdrawal.
Retiring well is a stewardship question before it is a math question. Our guide to retiring with purpose takes up the vocational side, and how much Christians should save for retirement handles the arithmetic.
Related reading
- Financial Stewardship for Christian Business Owners
- Christian Widow and Widower Financial Guide
- Christian Financial Planning for Mid-Career Professionals
- A Guide for Pastors and Deacons
- Christian Retirement Planning
- A Guide for Every Season of Life
- Financial Advice for Christian College Students
- Christian Financial Planning for Young Adults
- Christian Financial Planning for Newlyweds
- A Biblical Guide to Managing Money
