* Always go if your new boss is 20 years younger than you are.

* You’ll need closer to 90 percent of what you earned before if your income taxes stay the same or rise.

* Because of the stock market crash of 2008, the government allowed people with IRAs and 401(k)s to skip the required minimum withdrawal in 2009. You have to resume taking withdrawals in 2010.

* “Earnings” do not include investment income.

* These rules are the same for a husband with little or no Social Security earnings who applies for benefits on his wife’s record. But using wife as spouse tells the story in its most typical way. I could use the word spouse everywhere, but you’d never figure out which spouse I was talking about. Try it and see!

† Calculated by Alicia Munnell and Mauricio Soto for the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts.

* To figure this amount, determine your income from Social Security, pensions, and other regular sources. Subtract your essential expenses, for food, fuel, utilities, taxes, home upkeep, insurance, medications, and transportation. The gap between these two numbers is the amount you have to withdraw from savings every year.

* Note that you can’t use TreasuryDirect to buy bonds for an Individual Retirement Account. You have to use a broker instead. TreasuryDirect is only for individual purchases.