This is Edelman Financial Engine's everyday wealth, with award-winning journalist Soledad O'Brien,

personal finance expert Jean Chatsky,

and Edelman Financial Engine's wealth planner,

John McCaffrey.

Probably less traumatic is where you have decided to take an early retirement package.

The difference is that when companies have to right size,

they either decide, okay, we're going to have to lay people off or we're going to offer

this opportunity to take an early retirement package to decide, hey, I'm just going to go. I'm going to go happily because

I'm being offered this good package that might offer months and months of severance pay or extended medical insurance a continuation of my life insurance.

Maybe there is some sort of a fund to go back to school. Some companies even offer you a bridge to Social Security or to Medicare which is just a

series of payments that would get you from where you are right now to age

62 where Social Security could kick in or age 65 where Medicare could kick in.

And I have to imagine, John, that people come to you

where suddenly, like, the good news is you're being offered

a package, an off-ramp, and you have to decide at that moment what that's going to look like.

Part of what we want to help you figure out is, okay, is this a good offer or not?

How does this fit into what you may already have in place?

So you want to have a better understanding of your

benefits coverage and what you may or may not have to pay out of pocket so if you're

offered a buyout package or an early retirement package you want to take a

look at how many years do you have until Medicare?

What level of savings might you have outside of the 401k?

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