The Cost of Living Longer — Much Longer
Number crunchers are dead set on figuring out how long you will live. For those saving for retirement, it’s the $27 trillion question.
http://www.smartmoney.com/retirement/planning/the-cost-of-living-longer–much-longer-1328897162395/?mg=com-sm
While this is a long article (by web standards) I suggest anyone who is smart enough to think about life after retirement (including already being retired) read it. Naturally the information is equivocal, but it does allow one to focus what ‘success’ means in retirement planning. If you expect to die at 70 and plan on retiring at 65, then you don’t need much money at all to live well, but if you want to retire at 60 and expect to live into your 80’s or longer, you either need to win the lotto or develop very low expectations for your post-retirement lifestyle. In my and my wife’s case, we are trying to do a bit of both by trying to maximize our 401K, paying down long-term debt, expecting to have some modest income (hopefully through hobbies, certainly with flexible hours working from home) and determined to live with a lot less. With a spread sheet to look at some scenarios it would seem that this approach has a lot going for it, that is, as long as we either have affordable health care or manage to avoid expensive trips to the doctor. But just a few bad things can turn the pretty spread sheet view into a dismal slog through the end of life wondering each day if we should save that $5 or should splurge it on fast food.
Old(er) people always give advice to young(er) people that they themselves failed to heed, so I will continue that trend and say that you whippersnappers should really be putting some bucks away now so you don’t have to worry so much about it later.
