Well you mean you didn't put away that recommended 900,000.00 dollars?  Tsk, Tsk.  What freakin idiot wrote this?  How many of us working people out here who have raised families and still have to help our grown children because there are no jobs have a cool mill laying around?  I've worked 46 consecutive years, at good jobs am still working and I don't have a perverbial Pot to Piss In.  I am raising 2 Grandchildren and have had for the past 11 years.  I help my son and his family because he seems to get laid off in his line of work and its not just him its the way of life for the middle class now that it takes a 5 million dollar donation to have any representation or voice in government.   You people chill my azz.  Look down your boney azz noses and say this type chit.  A friend of mine was forced to retire the other day due to having a stroke, he was 68 years old and still working and working long hours at that.  I talked to him just a few days before he had the stroke about when he was going to retire and he told me when he was 70 because his wife needed his insurance so badly with poor health and he could not afford insurance after retiring.  We are slaves.

Ok- not sure the writer meant to say that you might have to live on $10K per month and then talks about income at retirement of 20-30K.  That said, some have managed, despite the economy to plan and survive. We put ourselves through college. We never "upsized" so we don't have to downsize.  We chose to live well below our means, invest and diversify without getting greedy in risky funds. We bought a modest home, paid it off early and resisted all those who urged us to "mortgage up" using our equity. We lost some money, made some not so great investments, finally found a trustworthy financial advisor, then watched him like a hawk. We started planning earlier rather than later. Chose not to have children and chose to live comfortably but within our means.  We bought modest cars but splurged on some motorcycles for fun. We did take decent vacations but never went into debt. If we could not afford it, we did not need it. We had the luck not to have a major health crisis. We lost some money, but were able to survive each getting laid off from long term employers, in turn. When that happened we took jobs at lower pay but kept moving and lowered our costs. In other words, we took charge of our future.  If not laid off or the economy not tanking, we'd be much better off, but my husband retires next year and at this time we have 1.2M not counting non liquid assets. We do not consider ourselves rich. We worked hard for what we have, planned carefully and took responsibility for our future. It can be done, but it was not easy.

We do give to charity but resent that we must "defend" working hard to earn our money and that we should "pay up" for those who did not plan. I'm not talking those who really had bad luck, but peope we know who built up debt and lived large.  I don't need to pay for that.