How do you know if you are on track for retirement? You may have multiple retirement accounts – whether through your current employer, prior employers or individual retirement accounts or IRAs. That makes it tough to know your retirement readiness.

While there are many tools and calculators available online, a quick general estimate is you’ll need 10 X your ending annual income plus what you’ll receive from Social Security to continue your normal standing of living in retirement.

To keep on track with that ending goal, there are recommended checkpoints along the way (see the graph below).

For example, if you are age 30 and have an annual income of $50,000, you would want to have $50,000 or more saved in your retirement accounts. By age 45 you would want to have 4x your annual income or $200,000 saved for retirement. By age 55, you would want 7X your annual income or $350,000 saved for retirement and at age 67, your goal would be 10x your annual income or $500,000.

As your income increases throughout your career, so do your retirement goals. Keep those quick checkpoints in mind when determining your retirement readiness throughout your career.

By doing this, you are taking an important step in planning for retirement. If you are behind on meeting a checkpoint – that's okay, many of us are. Consider contributing more to your retirement account or reach out to an intellicents financial advisor to help you take the right financial steps forward.

If you are retirement planning with a significant other, it is important to understand your full household’s picture. Keep in mind combined income and retirement savings as you calculate your retirement savings goals.