Insufficient Planning - Comfortably Oblivious

Too Many Americans Are Retiring Without Enough Planning

The three main mistakes that people make when planning for retirement are:

• Not saving enough
• Not guaranteeing enough income for retirement
• Not protecting their retirement assets

While not guaranteeing your retirement income or effectively protecting your retirement assets are serious problems – they are only issues if you actually have adequate savings.

Though many people think that they have adequate resources for retirement, few actually do. "America appears to be a nation of optimists when it comes to retirement, but for some people the retirement dream may turn into a nightmare," said Dallas Salisbury, president and CEO of the Employee Benefit Research Institute (ERBI) which recently conducted a retirement survey in conjunction with the American Savings Education Council and Mathew Greenwald & Associates.

The report found that 45 percent of all U.S. households have less than $25,000 in assets excluding their home), yet two-thirds of all workers expect to live as comfortably in retirement as they did when they worked. The reality is that the average person would use up that $25,000 in two or three years – even with their Social Security benefits.

According to the report:

• Ten percent of workers believe they will need less than 50 percent of their current income to live comfortably.
• Twenty-eight percent think that they will need 50-70 percent of their income to live comfortably.

Both groups are terribly WRONG! Most financial experts say you will need between 70-80 percent of your employment income to live comfortably.

So, if you currently earn $50,000 a year and expect to live in retirement for 15 years, you require (depending on how your assets are held and how inflation performs) -- at the very least -- well over $500,000 in retirement assets. And, that figure could be much higher depending on your health care requirements.

If you haven't already, visit the NewRetirement Retirement Calculator to help evaluate your retirement plan. Or, if you think your retirement plan is insufficient, explore these solutions: Reverse Mortgages, Retirement Jobs, Annuities, and more.