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The roughly 8%-per-year increase in your Social Security benefit for each year you delay claiming between full retirement age and 70 — a guaranteed, inflation-adjusted return that's hard to beat elsewhere.

The age at which you receive your baseline Social Security benefit — 67 for anyone born in 1960 or later. Claim before it and your benefit is permanently reduced; wait past it and it grows.

An annual increase that keeps income in step with inflation. Social Security applies a COLA each year, which is a big reason its guaranteed income is so valuable over a long retirement.

A pre-set plan for shifting a portfolio's stock/bond mix over time — typically holding more bonds near retirement to cushion the fragile early years, then easing back. Target-date funds follow a glide path automatically.

The percentage of a portfolio you can withdraw each year (adjusted for inflation) with a high chance the money lasts a full retirement. It's a planning heuristic, not a guarantee — 4% is the classic starting figure.

The danger that the order of investment returns — not just the average — hurts you when you're withdrawing. A bad decade early in retirement does far more damage than the same decade later, because you're selling shares at low prices to fund spending.

A single fund that holds a diversified mix and automatically follows a glide path toward a chosen retirement year. It's the plainest 'default' for people who freeze on investment choices.

Earning returns on your past returns, not just your original contributions. It's why starting early matters so much — and why a late start leans harder on savings rate than on market growth.