Suppose someone challenged you to drive across the country in two days for a chance to win a prize of $1 million? What would your strategy be?

Allow me to offer you some suggestions. First, you would get a map to chart the safest and most direct route from the East Coast to the West Coast. Second, you’d leave as soon as possible (the best way to arrive early is to leave early). Third, you’d take a reliable vehicle with a track record of performance and dependability.

That situation is a lot like investing for retirement. It’s a long journey. You should start with a sound map, in the form of a financial plan, to help you chart the safest and most direct route to your goal. Second, the earlier you invest, the earlier you arrive – in most cases. Third, you should take the most reliable and dependable vehicle you can.

That’s the thrust of the next few blogs – to guide you to a safe and prosperous retirement.

Are We Our Own Worst Enemy?

Let’s face it. No matter where you fall on the financial spectrum, investing for retirement is the most important financial move you’ll ever make in your life.

Unfortunately, it can also be the most complicated.

Consider the Baby Boomers – 70 million strong. The Boomers are reaching their retirement years -- the first boomer turns 60 on Jan. 1 – but they don’t seem to be fully prepared for retirement.

Worse yet, they’re growing more anxious about it.

A 2005 study - The MetLife Survey of American Attitudes Toward Retirement: What’s Changed? - shows Baby Boomers are increasingly anxious about retirement. The new study reports that the number of Boomers ‘worried about retirement’ has doubled, with younger members, ages 41 to 49, more likely to voice concern.

"Boomers are placing increasing importance on financial independence," said Sandra Timmermann, Ed.D., director of the Institute. "When asked about their primary consideration for satisfaction later in life, they are just as likely to cite finances as health and are very concerned that they will outlive their money, forcing them to scale back their current lifestyle. Lamenting that they do not have the same retirement security that their parents had with defined benefit pension plans, more and more Boomers do not have a comfortable outlook toward retirement.

"While it is troubling that Boomers are concerned about finances, perhaps more worrisome is that fewer are taking the steps necessary to ensure financial security in retirement," Timmermann added.

Only two-thirds (66%) of those surveyed believe they are saving at the rate needed to maintain their lifestyle, a decline from 77% in 2001.

The Boomers are no different than the clients I see walk through my door every day. They are increasingly aware that the stakes are critically high. They also realize that mistakes made in the years leading up to - and in - retirement, can haunt them for years, if not decades.

That sets up what I call a retirement planning “quadrant” – four cornerstones to successful retirement planning that, unfortunately, Americans have yet to master. In order, they are:

• Preserving the wealth you have created (the “keep it safe” factor)

• Keeping ahead of inflation

• Avoiding onerous taxes

• Not outliving your money

These are threats that seem to be converging on Americans at the same time, much like the rare combination of meteorological events that produced a monster nor'easter with 120-mph winds and waves towering 10 stories high in Sebastion Junger’s best-selling book "The Perfect Storm”.

You remember the book, or maybe you saw the movie with George Clooney in the lead role. It chronicled the fate of a commercial fishing boat, the Andrea Gail, and the heroic battle its captain and five-man crew waged to survive.

A true story indeed, the tragedy was, they didn’t survive.

True, nobody is suggesting that you’re going to drown if you don’t master the perfect storm of financial threats that promises to capsize you. But, the ramifications of not getting your financial house in order in your golden years can be far-reaching.

Next time we'll begin to examine our four cornerstones so we can better understand the true path to financial security.