Planning for retirement requires balancing savings, lifestyle

This is an excellent question because it relates to current lifestyle as well as future planning. You used the word "sacrifice" and, because this is not your practice life, why would anyone want to diminish needlessly the quality of life that he or she could currently enjoy? Your question brings up significant issues, which call into question the very premise of traditional financial planning.

Following will be several aspects of financial planning that we think will help to uncover what we consider "inconsistencies" and "contradictions" in the way most people plan for their retirement, as well as the approach they take in planning for their short and intermediate goals in life.

Most retirement analyses use a set of assumptions to calculate how much someone should save for retirement. In part, these assumptions include current assets, age of retirement, inflation rate, rates of return, income tax rates, social security benefits, mortality ages, investment portfolio allocation, and projected savings.

Other than short-term treasury bills, CDs, and money market accounts, almost all investments have a standard deviation from their average annual rate of return over any time period. To rely on an annual fixed average rate of return is to say that the Dow Jones Industrial will return, as an example, exactly 12.1% per year for the next 50 years.

Here is an example of a married couple that consulted a financial planner. Both were 55 years of age, had $900,000 in their 401(k) and intended to invest an additional $16,000 per year. They desired to retire at age 61 on $112,500 per year. They were planning for a 40-year time horizon and have decided on an asset allocation of 55% large cap stocks, 25% small cap stocks, 18% bonds, and 2% cash.

A portfolio allocated in this manner over the 10-year period ending December 31, 1999 produced a compound rate of return of 15.4%.

According to this traditional method of projections, this planner informed the couple that they would not only have sufficient cash flow for life, but that his projections showed that they would end up with $23 million in invested assets at age 94, their joint age of mortality.

This investment profile is hypothetical, and the asset allocations are presented only as examples and are not intended as investment advice. Please consult your financial advisor if you have questions about these examples or how they relate to your own financial situation.