How much money will you need to retire?
A: The rule of thumb was 50 to 70 percent of your pre-retirement income.
That was OK when you died before you retired. But in the last century, medical technology and healthy lifestyles have doubled our life expectancy. There is no wonderment anymore when seniors live past age 100.
Besides, who waits until 65 to retire? You will be retired as many years as you were working.
Retirement is a two-staged plan. First stage is doing all those things you didn't have time to do when you were working: travel, dine out often, play golf, etc.
In fact, your income needs will not go down during this period.
The second stage of retirement is a quieter period. It looks like expenses decreased, but your health care outlays have increased. And with medical technology, you can live a physically comfortable life for a long time, although not really mobile or active.
The real fear of retire-ment is running out of money. Think about the consequences living a long life will have on you. And don't forget to include long term care insurance in your retirement portfolio to protect those assets.
Sunny Kurman is a Certified Financial Planner, and a member of the Financial Planning Association of Illinois, which can be contacted at info@fpaillinois.org. Each Monday in the Sun-Times Business section, Illinois FPA advisers answer pressing questions about personal finance.