Ahh, retirement. Louning on the beach...Shirley Temple in hand.
Abandon those dreams. The only way you're going to spend a luxurious retirement during your golden years with sand between your toes is if you work as a lifeguard (mind your dentures when giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation).
At least that's what a 2002 Retirement Confidence Survey (RCS) seems to indicate. According to the RCS -- which was released by the Employee Benefits Research Center, the American Savings Education Council, and Matthew Greenwald & Associates -- 70 percent of Americans are very or somewhat confident that they'll live a comfortable retirement. Yet only a third of those surveyed have ever attempted to calculate how much they should be saving. Additionally, 47 percent of working Americans have saved less than $50,000, and 15 percent haven't saved anything.
Though $50,000 may sound like a lot, especially if you found it in the birthday card your grandmother sent you, it won't last long in retirement. That's because personal savings will have to provide the bulk of your retirement income. We all know we can't rely solely on Social Security; as it is now, the average benefit is around $10,000 a year. And that will most likely be reduced as the baby boomers retire. As for the traditional pension (more properly known as a defined-benefit plan), it's going the way of the dodo as employers shift the burden and risk of retirement savings onto their employees.
