In a recent poll conducted by AARP (American Association of Retire Persons) indicates that many American workers may not have adjusted to the new economic reality:

That responsibility for funding retirement is shifting from business and government onto workers themselves and

That many have not begun to save for the costs that they will face.

Yet, people tend to view events in the future through rose coloured glasses with 75% of these same workers defining themselves as very confident or somewhat confident about having enough money to live comfortably in their retirement years:

Juxtaposed with considering the hard statistics, it appears that many are indeed suffering from the ostrich syndrome. If I put my head in the sand, the danger will go away:

31 percent of workers age 40 and over have saved for their retirement

28 percent of those retired workers say that they did not save any money for the golden day before they retired. Why then did they still retire?

28 percent of workers say they are worried about being able to pay for retirement medical expenses

43 percent of workers have less than $25,000 in total savings and investments, excluding the value of their home and defined benefit plans ? and we read every day about companies cutting back or dropping their defined benefit plans.

These are discouraging statistics for a country as great as the United States.

But, are we as Bermudians any more prepared? Do we have more opportunities to save and are we taking them? Are our benefit plans better, worse, or non-existent? Are we taking the time to plan now as best we can for a financially secure future? Bermuda still offers great opportunities for those willing to take them.The flip answer, of course, is to save as much as you absolutely can, but that type of planning imposes rather severe constraints on every day living. Each day we are here on this still green environment, we should be able to enjoy a quality of life. Quality can be as distinctive as the individual achieving it, and is easily a topic for a 5,000 word essay.

Let?s leave it there and focus on an easy retirement funding projection. Caution: these are estimates; the methodology may not work for everyone, particularly if you are more than fifteen years away from retirement. If you are truly interested in refining your retirement numbers, there is an excellent retirement funding calculator on the AARP website, www.aarp.com.Part of the problem in trying to assess what is needed for a satisfactory retirement lifestyle is that projections need to be made to include the effects of inflation as well as investment returns (assuming that over the long run they are in positive territory) and factoring our as yet undetermined lifetime (in years) on this good earth.

If we didn?t have to juggle those concepts, it would be quite simple.Rather than projecting savings amounts, let?s turn the equation upside down and figure out how much is needed for living expenses - based upon what you have in liquid assets accumulated and your annual expenses are today.

Assumptions: Hypothetical situation using general estimates.

? 3 percent, annual expenses increase each year

? 2 percent, pension amounts increase each year

? 5 percent, investments / savings increase long-term

? $30,000

? $40,000

? $50,000 for natural life of 20 years in retirement

Each of these numbers is affected by different economic stressors. Our purchasing power goes down every year by the rate of inflation. You can control this to a certain extent by what, when, and how you buy. Learn and track the cost of your household expenditures and take advantage of every saving.

Can you achieve a 5 percent savings rate? That depends, educate yourself about investments and work with your pension administrator to understand what risk you are willing to accept to see a better rate of return long-term.

This is a ten year projection after retirement. Notice that after a few years, your savings will be depleted. Working in retirement will allow your savings to continue to grow. In this example, you have 10-15 years before retirement. Anticipate and plan for this eventuality by putting away as much of the shortfall in chart each year that you can now . If you plan on working in retirement, you may be able to make up even more of the shortfall with your earnings. Those technically astute will say that this chart may have flaws. I have opted not to demonstrate the complex probability modelling that Certified Financial Planner ? certificants prepare. A simple surplus/shortfall in a cash cushion chart will hopefully motivate you to assess your retirement situation. Take control for positive results.

If you really want to assure yourselves of a decent quality of life and are worried about getting there, a few rules to follow.

Get in shape, look - with it! Your job is more important than ever. dress professionally current. Ladies, no adornment displays, look serious; men that means shedding pounds while gaining ground intellectually.

Upgrade your skills, you are never too old to continue your education.

Be flexible, plan where to seek new career changes and then go for it

Save by investing If your retirement is on shaky ground, you don?t need that Gucci bag today. Reward yourself when you reach your goal.

Plan on working as long as you can into retirement. By then, you will have honed your career skills to the point of still being a desired employee, even part-time.

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