Sometimes, the main difference between a tenuous retirement plan and a solid one is the reliability of the cash flows you’re expecting in retirement.

People approach retirement planning in a number of ways. Sometimes a retirement plan starts with a single, high-level goal. "I want to retire with $1 million," for example, or (and this is a better way of thinking about it), "I want to retire with enough money invested that will generate $75,000 a year."

How much money should you have in your 401(k)? It's a tough question.

For the more adventurous, real estate income is another way. Investing in rental property can be a compelling option for those who have the time, the handyman abilities, and the willingness to find and work with tenants.

If you have ever worked with a contractor, or at least a contractor who is being up front with you, you may have heard something like the following: "You can have the work done cheaply, quickly, and of very high quality--but you can only pick two of these things."

$2 million might not be enough to retire on any longer. With inflation running hot, expenses have gone up for most people.

If you want to retire early, it's best to start thinking about it when you're young. But that's not the only way. There are a number of ways to make early retirement happen, especially if you save consistently.

The good news from ICI is that total household retirement assets are, on average, higher than they have ever been. The bad news is that average household retirement assets are only in the $24,000 range, meaning total household financial assets are only in the $70,000 range.

Free online retirement estimators and calculators should be thought of as a starting point, not an ending point, when planning for retirement--especially an early retirement.

You probably know the saying "garbage in, garbage out." It originates with computer programming: If the programming is sloppy, the results will be inaccurate.

Do you really want to ask "Will I outlive my money in retirement or not?" You can ask that, but what you also need to be asking is "What is the probability that I do not outlive my money in retirement?" For this you need an accurate Monte Carlo Retirement Calculator.

Planning for retirement starts with saving for retirement; you won't be able to retire if you don't have any money. (Relying on Social Security alone won't cut it.)

You may have read stories about people who have retired early. There really is no magic to it. Lots of articles, lots of books, entire careers devoted to helping other people end their careers early, but no magic.

You normally have a variety of levers you can pull when looking at retirement. If you target a certain age for retirement, you eliminate how far you can pull one of those levers, which is time--you are taking away the option of delaying retirement beyond a certain date. That's OK; it's just something to be aware of.

We'll just get this out of the way right up front. You need to start contributing more to your 401(k). And you should consider trying to max out your 401(k) contributions eventually.

Retiring "early" means different things to different people. But let's just say retiring before age 60 constitutes an early retirement for most people.

There lots of basic things that everyone should be doing to save money. You have probably heard these before, but they bear repeating.

Many of us feel like we should save more money, but lack the will to do so. Perhaps the lure of free money can help with that.

It is such an important question- How much money do I need to retire? But not enough people ask it. Even they do ask the question, they are not using the proper tools and analysis to correctly answer this all-important question.

Can I retire by the time I'm 60? I hear that question a lot in my line of work. Although for some people retiring before age 60 is impossible, many others can still legitimately ask this question.