Marc Cram

It seems like only a few short years ago no one was worried about retirement. The stock market was roaring, home prices were rising and the economy was in solid shape. Everything looked rosy and many people were planning for an early retirement or at least one that carried no risk.

There has been much ink spent lately on the problems in the housing market. Talk of people losing their homes because of bad loans, dishonest mortgage lenders and poor planning are rampant in most any paper you pick up today. Let's look at who is really responsible for this mess.

You have been saving diligently now for many years, looking forward to the day, not too far down the road, when you can retire and begin living off those hard saved dollars. You have done everything the gurus and planners have told you to do but you have a sinking feeling in your belly that maybe it wasn't enough.

As we baby boomers approach retirement many of us have started to take a much closer look at what we will need in the form of assets if we are to live to the age of 80 and beyond. Most of us have been very focused on accumulation of assets up to this point and may not have stopped to consider what the future outcomes might look like.

In the 6th century BC, Aesop gave us a timeless moral in The Ant and The Grasshopper: "It is thrifty to prepare today for the wants of tomorrow."