For most Americans who have not started planning for their retirement,401k plans seem like a “good bet”. A flaw in this approach is the investor’s reliance on employer matching for the plan. This can cause an employee to rely too much on the employer and not contribute enough to savings. Nothing will give you a wake up call like using a retirement calculator. You can find them on the internet from a variety of places. Retirement planning is hard, and it isn’t something you just throw together at the last minute.

Even if a professional financial planner is helping you, the financial planning process is hard. There are a lot of variables. The age you want to retire at, when you start saving money, how much you save, and the interest rate you earn are just some of the many considerations you have to think about. One of the biggest concerns may be your health when entering retirement and how long you live after you retire.

Government inflation of the money supply also means you have to account for inflation. That can be hard to do. There are many retirement calculators on the internet to help you though. What most of the calculators will show you, however, is that Social Security – for the most part – will not cover very much of your retirement. You will have to save a lot more money to have even a semi-comfortable retirement.

The economy will probably recover, and continue to grow. However with inflation at anywhere between three and five percent, you are going to be gaining and losing value in your investments based on how much your savings is being eroded.

Years ago our parents and grandparents, grew up in a time when a $50 a week wage was respectable income, and even during mid life that respectable income had quadrupled to $200 a week. But now, more than 50 years later, it would be foolish to expect to be able to live off $200 a week, and the $50 a week income is minor in today’s economy.

Average Americans making $500 to $1,000 per week today will see the same kind of results that their parents and grandparents are seeing now, unfortunately. The retirement calculators are showing that they should have a retirement nest egg of close to a million bucks if they want to retire comfortably for 20-30 years.

One calculator tested online showed that an adult starting with an assets of $100,000 and adding $4,000 year to that nest egg would enter retirement with almost $900,000 but still be bankrupt by 85.

An essential part of managing your existing income is setting aside and investing funds for your retirement. Despite the difficulty of estimating your retirement income and expenditures, there is a wealth of assistance available on the internet to get you started, and professional advisors ready to help when needed.