Reaching 10 Years — In Your 30s

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"Now that I have a family and a new home, I think more about our financial future. I met with a financial advisor and want to begin investing for our kids' education. It's also important to make sure if anything happens to me, my family is financially secure."  

At this point in your life, you may be achieving both family and career milestones.

As your family expands, so does your responsibility to provide financial protection if you are unable to work. If necessary, you should update your NYSTRS beneficiary designation, and review your private life and disability insurance to determine if you have adequate protection.

With 10 years of service credit, you may be deciding if you will be a career teacher. Among the considerations: How will your retirement benefit increase as you continue to work? How does your death benefit change over the years? Do you need to supplement your NYSTRS benefits with additional private coverage? How will your benefits be affected if you decide to stop working before you are eligible to retire?

Our services and publications will help you answer these questions and provide the information you need to make your decisions.

More About Your Benefit Profile

The information you receive each year in your Benefit Profile takes on new meaning as you build credit and become eligible for additional benefits.

Continue to make sure your service credit and salaries are correct. Are all of your earnings for the last school year included? Has your service credit been properly recorded? In the future, your benefit eligibility and the calculation of your benefits will depend on the accuracy of this information.

The "Projected Benefits" section of your Profile is a valuable career-planning tool. Your retirement benefits are projected under the following scenarios:

  1. You stopped working at the end of the previous school year, do no further teaching and retire at age 55. 

  2. You continue to work and retire at the end of the school year in which you become eligible to retire. Under Tiers 2, 3 and 4, your benefit will be reduced if you retire between ages 55 and 62 with less than 30 years of credit. For Tier 5 members, the benefit is reduced if retirement occurs before age 57 (regardless of service credit) or if retirement occurs between ages 57 and 62 with less than 30 years of service.

  3. You are a Tier 2-6 member, you continue to work and retire at the end of the school year when there are no reductions to your benefit.

Now that you are credited with at least 10 years of service, you have met the service credit requirement for a disability retirement. The projection in your Profile shows what you would receive for a disability retirement at the end of the current school year.

If you become ill or are injured and must stop working, you or a family member should call us as soon as possible at (800) 348-7298, Ext. 6010. You should also request our pamphlet If You Are No Longer Able to Work, which explains in detail how to file for a disability retirement.

Your in-service death benefit and your contributions fund are updated annually. Your beneficiary information is also shown. Check your beneficiary designation; do you want or need to change it? Call our Hotline at (800) 782-0289 or visit our website for a Designation of Beneficiary (NET-11.4) form.

Additional Information 

The newsletter Your Source is published three times a year. In it you will find information about your NYSTRS benefits, as well as articles on retirement planning, System news, and other items of interest to educators. Topics range from how service credit affects your retirement benefits to finding a financial planner.

Visit Our Website 

Visiting our website at www.nystrs.org is the quickest and easiest way to get the latest information on legislation and news related to your benefits. You can also:

Key Financial Decisions

If you are a Tier 3 or 4 member with 10 years of service credit or membership, you will stop making required 3% member contributions, giving you more take-home money to invest. Regardless of your tier, this is the perfect time to evaluate your financial status and answer important questions, such as:

$ What investment vehicles should you use to supplement your future retirement benefits?
$ Do you have an adequate contingency fund for emergency purposes?
$ Will your family have enough income if you are unable to work?

 

Remember the 20-Something Millionaire?

If you didn't start saving $2,000 annually at age 20 as discussed in the previous chapter, know that the cost of becoming a millionaire has risen dramatically. If at age 30 you want to achieve seven-figure status at age 67, you will need to save two-and-a-half times more – or $5,000 annually – to make your goal. Again, this assumes an 8% annual rate of return.

If you saved $2,000 and earned 8% interest annually from age 30 to 67, you'd accumulate $400,000 – or a $600,000 "loss" by starting 10 years too late. That's an example of the magic of compounding in reverse!