The American Association of Individual Investors has an interesting article on retirement myths on its web site: www.aaii.com/features/retirementplanning.cfm. It lists some misconceptions people have about what they will do in retirement. Here are a couple of them.

One is the idea that only men retire, that women, especially those who haven’t worked outside the home, just keep doing what they were doing. Not true. Everyone needs to plan for retirement. Another myth is that retirement is easy, because it’s just the absence of the problems experienced in the working world. Again, not true. Here’s a third: it will cost a lot less to live in retirement, for a variety of reasons that usually don’t pan out. As we’ve said a few times, retirement takes some thinking ahead, to avoid financial surprises and a crushing sense of boredom and loss.