$1 Million To Retire?

It was only very recently that the Straits Times of Singapore ran an article questioning the need to retire with a large sum of money. Today (15th November 2005), the Today (now into it's 5th year) paper ran a similar article entitled "Do We Really Need A Million Bucks To Retire?".

The article by the Straits Times seemed to promote stronger family ties to last a person through retirement rather than the accumulation of assets; at least that was my impression after reading it. Today's article asks the reader to reflect on his or her definition of a comfortable retirement before deciding how much is needed as a retirement fund.

Whatever it is, I trust most of us would not mind retiring with more rather than less. Retirement planning is not exactly rocket science. It takes mainly a commitment to one's own future and the discipline to save towards it.

After all, isn't living like this:

A whole lot better than living like this?:

So what are the key ideas of retirement planning? Below is an extract of the article by Today:

Not that difficult, is it? It's something we can all achieve if we would just make up our mind to do it.