Maybe You Want to Retire Later

Frank Armstrong, III and Paul B. Brown

When people, especially those now in their 40s to mid-50s, start to get serious about retirement planning, they are always shocked and dismayed. This occurs for two reasons.

First, they simply haven’t saved enough money. They realize that the $50,000 they have saved by age 50—and that is unfortunately a representative number—won’t go very far after they stop working. Even if they have managed to save substantially more, the bear market we experienced in 2008 reduced whatever money they had in their 401(k)s, 403(b)s, SEPs, Keoghs, and IRAs by a dramatic amount.

The second reason they get depressed is they realize they don’t have a lot of years left to make up for lost time. ...