6 Excuses For Not Saving For Retirement

I'm paying for my kid's college education Higher education costs money, as does retirement. Though it's a noble goal to fund Junior's college education, it shouldn't come at the expense of saving for retirement."Everyone wants to retire; not every kid goes to college," says Peter Donohoe, Certified Financial Planner at PRW Associates in Quincy, Mass."If you do have kids that go to college, there are options for kids, student loans and scholarships," he says.Obviously, no such loans exist for retirees. Given the near extinction of defined benefit plans -- those pension plans where companies foot the retirement bill -- workers need to completely overhaul their spending and saving priorities."People have not been willing to make the sacrifice to save more for retirement. This is really going to hit home when we see people hitting retirement age and not being able to retire," says Carrie Coghill Kuntz, director of consumer education for FreeScore.com.

My parents died young Expecting to die young is not a retirement plan. It's tragic when it happens, but it cannot be relied upon as a reason to spend every cent in the present."Health and medicine are different now, and statistics are showing that people are living a decade longer. What happens if you don't die at 60?" says Certified Financial Planner Susan Hirshman, president of SHE Ltd., a financial services consulting firm, and author of "Does This Make My Assets Look Fat?"Another investment adviser runs her clients' financial plans to age 100."We tell our clients to have their retirements funded 120 percent. I say, 'Listen, do you have an aunt or uncle who lived into their 90s?' People don't realize how much they really need to save for retirement," says Rosann Roge, a Certified Financial Planner at R.W. Roge & Co. in Bohemia, N.Y.The prospect of being a penniless 99-year-old should spur many people to save more, but procrastination persists.