When retirement's on your radar and you begin planning for it, it's understandable that you might feel confused and overwhelmed - it's probably hard to know where to start. There's a lot to learn, and you'll need to make many important decisions that will have a critical impact on your future.

To help you with this important task, I'm introducing a 12-week series of posts that will guide you through the planning process. Each week, I'll describe a few steps you should take that week. The primary focus will be on actions that affect your financial security, although some steps will involve your health and lifestyle, since these topics affect your retirement, too. Click here to read an overview of the steps you'll take during the next 12 weeks.

Please continue reading for this month's selections of helpful blog posts and articles on retirement.

Since retirees need to make every dollar count in retirement, it's important to be aware of just how much money you really require to meet your needs and be happy. Several studies have indicated that once you have enough money to meet your basic needs, additional money doesn't add much to your happiness. But is that really the case?

To dig deeper on these findings, I'm working with the California Institute of Finance at California Lutheran University to understand the relationship between money, life satisfaction, work, relationships, family, friends, and health. We've developed the 2011 Wealth and Happiness Survey, and I invite your participation -- it should only take about 15 minutes. Your participation will help you and others understand these important, life-planning issues.  Click here to take the survey.

The 2007 version of this survey showed a significant correlation between life satisfaction, work, and finances.  If these results are confirmed by the 2011 survey, it will provide additional evidence that challenges the conventional notion of retirement as "not working."  Do people have a fundamental need to be productive and useful to society?  We hope to find out, and I'll share the results with you in a future newsletter.

About 75 percent of Americans typically end up with a federal tax refund, and the average refund this year is almost $3,000. Read this excellent post from CBS MoneyWatch blogger Carla Fried to learn how to leverage your 2010 tax refund into even more.

We listen to experts in nearly all areas of life - medicine, finances, and weather, to name a few. However, many of these experts end up being wrong. Here's why, from an insightful post from fellow CBS MoneyWatch blogger Larry Swedroe. If you want to learn more about this fascinating topic, read Larry's review of the book Wrong, by David Freeman.

The index fund industry does lousy public relations campaigns. Indexing is considered a "dull" brand but, in reality, it's very sexy. Here's why, from an excellent post by fellow CBS MoneyWatch blogger Allan Roth.

Recent reports from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College and the Society of Actuaries show that the majority of Americans approaching retirement have more wealth in their home's equity than in their 401k fund and other retirement savings. What I wonder is, when aging boomers start realizing their 401k balances aren't sufficient to fund their retirement, will they consider tapping their home equity as a source of retirement income? Read here to learn about various ways that Americans might tap their home equity in retirement.

If you're approaching retirement, you've no doubt become more aware of all the various articles and books out there promoting their lists of the best places to retire. Choosing where you'll live in your retirement years is one of the most important decisions you'll make - according to statistics from the Department Of Labor, housing is the largest item in Americans' household spending.

To help you with this critical decision, I'll narrow the list down to just one place: The best place for you to live during your retirement years is the place that best meets your needs, as you define them.  Read here to learn how you can determine your best place to retire.

Working Americans' confidence in their ability to retire is at an all-time low, according to the 2011 Retirement Confidence Survey released in March by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI). The survey shows that people who actually run the numbers to see how much money they need - and then save more money - will be more confident about retirement than people who don't take these steps at all.

But even if you feel more confident, there's still a problem. Millions of aging boomers just don't have enough retirement savings to be able to retire any time soon, as indicated by EBRI's report. And even if they could crank up their savings over the next few years, there may not be enough years left for them to save enough money to make much of a difference.  So what can you do? Read here for some tips.