What's Your Retirement Number?    

by Steve Vernon, FSA

How much retirement savings do you really need in order to leave the workforce for good? Have you taken the time to figure it out for yourself?

If you're considering retiring soon, this is an important task you shouldn't do casually -- and you should never accept a general fixed number that you might have read is the goal for most people. Instead, you should calculate the retirement savings you need, taking into account your own circumstances and preferences.

Read here to see how you can calculate your number in four "not so hard" steps. Note that I resisted the sensationalist temptation to call it "four easy steps." While they're not rocket science, they will take a little of your time.

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

How much retirement income can you generate from your retirement savings? This is a critical question because it will affect how much money you'll have to spend for the rest of your life. And the answer can vary widely, depending on a number of factors, the most important being the method you use to generate retirement income. To help you choose the method or methods that are best for you, here are three scorecards for April 2012, that compare how much you'll get from three different ways to generate retirement income:

-  using just the interest and dividends from invested assets

-  managed payouts

-  immediate annuities 

You may need to review these posts to calculate your retirement number, as discussed above.

Is Inflation Likely to Soar?

One of the greatest fears investors face today is the risk of runaway inflation. They fear that a combination of the Federal Reserve's actions of both quantitative easing (increasing the size of the Fed's balance sheet from about $1 trillion in 2008 to about $3 trillion today) and qualitative easing (lowering the Fed funds rate to zero) will lead to a recurrence of the type of inflation we faced in the mid-1970s and early '80s. And the fear seems to be paranoia, fueled perhaps by the run-up in gold prices.

CBS MoneyWatch blogger Larry Swedroe suggests that the risks are overstated. Read here for details.

Because we're living longer and are healthier than previous generations, the employment of workers over 65 has increased dramatically. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment of workers 65 and over increased 101 percent between 1977 and 2007, compared to a much smaller increase of 59 percent for total employment (for those age 16 and over). Read here for an excellent story from CBS MoneyWatch editor-at-large Jill Schlesinger about the benefits of working longer.

Late last year, Vanguard launched a new variable annuity with a guaranteed lifetime withdrawal benefit. This is the first variable annuity that financial planner and CBS MoneyWatch Allan Roth has ever considered for his clients. Read here for details on this new product.

Most older Americans don't have nearly enough in retirement savings to be able to retire any time soon. That's one finding from the 2012 Retirement Confidence Survey, recently released by The Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI).

If you're one of the not-so-well-funded, what can you do besides live in a tent and eat noodles during your retirement years? There are some steps you can take to make your money last, but most likely none of them is what you had in mind for your "golden years." Nevertheless, you'll need to do more than just worry, so here are some thoughts about what action steps you can take.

Getting the Most From Social Security, Straight From the Horse's Mouth     

Steve Goss, chief actuary of the Social Security Administration, is one of the nation's top experts on retirement data. Since he's like a walking encyclopedia on Social Security's workings and features, retirement blogger Mark Miller sat down with him ahead of the release of the trustee report to find out how beneficiaries can get the most out of the current Social Security program. Miller's article appeared on his website, RetirementRevised, and you can read it here.