Much like you or I would send a card of support to a friend in troubled times the CEO of the company who holds my retirement account took a minute this week to send me and my fellow policyholders a few words of encouragement during these shaky times. Even though it seemed odd to get a note that essentially says, "This too shall pass," from a major corporation, it gave me a little peace of mind to know they haven't forgot whose money they have.

The gist of the email was to brag about its "sound decision making" and avoidance of subprime securities, and how these actions have allowed it to remain strong and safe during this turmoil. Normally a company flaunting its good choices in such a blatant manner would have turned me off, but this email made me want to drive over the headquarters and give every employee a hearty slap on the back! These actions were even more impressive by the fact that other institutions did not express the same concern for our money.

On top of the reassurances and self congratulatory words they also offered to help me make the right financial decisions. To do this, the company has offered its employees free personalized advice on how to best allocated their funds, depending on their life stage. Even though I am a ways off from retirement I think I just might take them up on this offer. In the end, I'm glad they took the time to let me know that I won't see them on the news next week, as the next company to be taken over!

Madison DuPaix had a goal of leaving the workforce by age 29. She has been saving since the tender age of 16, and has been planning her exit from corporate America for years. With two very small children, she's going to spend more quality time with them, but won't feel a financial pinch thanks to smart planning.

Did you ever think retiring at age 29 was even possible? I suppose most of us don't think it can happen for us. But Madison's site offers lots of information on how she and her husband were able to make this happen. She's not fully retiring. She'll be doing some professional blogging, but because of smart planning, she doesn't need to pull in six figures from it.

You can learn how Madison did this on her site, but here are a few of the highlights. Although Madison had a job with a six-figure compensation package, she figured that 2/3 of her earnings were going to pay for childcare and taxes. In her "retirement," she'll be slashing 60% off childcare costs. She was also putting a lot of her earnings into savings in preparation for her retirement. Madison estimates about 15% of her and her husband's salaries were going into retirement savings. She no longer has to worry about that chunk of money.

The John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development has recently released a report titled, "The Anxious American Worker" which addresses the state of American employees. This report not only looks into the satisfaction that workers have with their jobs and with health care, but also who the workers blame and who they believe should fix the current problems facing employees.
The director of the Heldrich Center describes the findings of the report as a decade of un-addressed concerns, and a call for help from American workers.

Perhaps the most shocking portion of the report dealt with debt and retirement. The report found that almost a third of American workers had more credit card debt than funds in their retirement accounts!

The Social Security Administration has a new tool to help people estimate how much they'll receive in Social Security Benefits once they retire. The Retirement Estimator gives you estimates for early retirement, full retirement age, and age 70. The tool is okay, but obviously, the further from retirement you are, the less accurate the estimate will probably be.

In order to use this tool, you'll have to include your full name, date of birth, Social Security number, and mother's maiden name. I was concerned about how identity thieves could exploit the system, since anyone could pretend to be you. Thankfully, SSA did put a protection in place: It only offers estimates of your retirement benefits and doesn't show the earnings history that was used to calculate the benefits.

I'm not counting on getting any Social Security benefits once I retire. It's clear that the current system can't be sustained as the Baby Boomers retire, and a revamp of it will likely leave people like me paying in more over my work life and receiving nothing once I retire. But if you're nearing retirement age, it's a nice tool to help you find out how much you'll be getting on a monthly basis.

Tracy L. Coenen, CPA, MBA, CFE performs fraud examinations and financial investigations for her company Sequence Inc. Forensic Accounting, and is the author of Essentials of Corporate Fraud.

Ken and Daria Dolan, America's First Family of Personal Finance, answer your money questions every Friday.

Click here to ask Ken and Daria your question.

Having life insurance is sort of like that TV show, The Price is Right: The winner in the insurance game is the one who comes closest to meeting their exact life insurance needs without going over. So, how do you know how much you need -- and how long do you need it for?

This question gets trickier to answer as you enter retirement. Check out our video response below to learn what criteria you need to consider when making this important decision.

Dear Ken and Daria,

I have a life insurance policy through work that will end when I retire soon. I say we still need the insurance, but my husband disagrees. What do you suggest?

-Flo

Taking care of your life insurance needs is a critical part of your financial plan. Start with Ken and Daria's worksheet on Dolans.com to make sure you're getting the right coverage.

Did you know that the United States is in the beginning stages of a major brain drain? Baby boomers are starting to retire, and along with them goes a whole lot of knowledge. Experts predict that we're going to have a serious talent shortage very soon because of the retirement of so many experienced workers.

There are about 76 million baby boomers poised to retire, and companies are looking for ways to lure them into staying longer. While we're used to hearing about companies getting rid of older workers who cost them a lot of money in terms of higher salaries and more expensive health care costs, the reality in corporate America is that these older workers are desperately needed.

Companies historically haven't been proactive in getting older workers to train younger workers to do their jobs. They're finally realizing how critical this knowledge transfer may be to their businesses long-term, and management is starting to make arrangements for older workers to work more closely with the younger employees.

One key to managing this transition may be in offering baby boomers more flexibility as they transition into retirement. Studies show that many older Americans would like to continue working some, but would like flexibility and a fair amount of leisure time blended into their work lives. Companies that find a way to meet these requirements will likely have an easier time getting boomers to stick around (at least part time) and teach others what they know.

Tracy L. Coenen, CPA, MBA, CFE performs fraud examinations and financial investigations for her company Sequence Inc. Forensic Accounting, and is the author of Essentials of Corporate Fraud.

It has been long known that folks that are married have longer life span. Now, new research by the Karolinska Institute on Sweden has found that marriage or having a partner halves the risk of developing dementia. Scientists believe social interaction between couples may ward off illness. Good reason to work on your relationships.

The dollars involved in the care for Alzheimer's and other dementia victims is no small amount. In 2005, Medicare spent $91 billion on beneficiaries with Alzheimer's and other dementias ,and that number is projected to more than double to $189 billion by 2015. Medicaid spending per person equals around $13,207 per year on average per patient with dementia.

Ken and Daria Dolan, America's First Family of Personal Finance, answer your money questions every Friday.

Dear Ken and Daria,

My husband recently retired at age 62 and we are planning to live off our taxable funds for a few years until his IRA kicks in. Is there a formula for figuring out how long our money will last us?

-Kathi

Curious how long your retirement savings will last? Use this retirement calculator at Dolans.com to find out!

Click here to ask Ken and Daria your question.

The Social Security administration rolled out a new version of its online benefits calculator today. The new version of the benefits calculator requires less input from the user by making use of the Social Security database to determine past wages. The new incarnation also enables users to factor in higher future earnings when calculating benefits, making for a more realistic outcome. The new "Retirement Estimator" is available right now on the Social Security website.

I was excited to learn that the SSA has taken at least half of the guesswork out of the benefit calculator by accessing the past data they have on you; unfortunately you're still left to determine what you will make for the rest of your working years.

Even if you have to make an educated guess in order to complete the process, the benefit calculator is still way more useful than the bleak annual mailing I've gotten for several years now, informing me of my current benefits, which suggest that I will be lucky to collect 78 cents on the dollar in my retirement.

A few years back, my buddy Chris taught me about bluegrass music. Because we lived in southwest Virginia, it was easy to go to bluegrass concerts and festivals, and it seemed like half the bars in my area hosted a bluegrass night with live music.

In 2000 and 2001, one of the themes of my education was the great John Hartford. As Hartford fought non-Hodgkins lymphoma, he continued to tour the country, playing an impressive schedule of concert dates and leaving a final legacy of amazing music. I was lucky enough to see him a few times over those two years, and I was left with a bottomless admiration for his skill and dedication. I realized that, like John Hartford, I never wanted to retire. I wanted to love something so much that I would be happy to continue doing it up until the moment of my death.

This was a fantastic revelation, as I also realized that, things being what they are, I would probably never be able to stop working. While my parents' jobs in the military and the government carried hefty pensions, my work in academia was only going to leave me with a small monthly stipend. While my grandparents' generation could look forward to fairly hefty social security checks and private pensions, it was pretty clear that I couldn't count on living off the government teat. Assuming that Social Security still exists in 30 years, I am willing to bet that my monthly checks will cover a few packets of ramen and some cat food, with enough left over for a box of Tic-Tacs.

If you worry a lot about retirement, and if you'll have enough money to cover your cost of living in 2015 or 2036 or whenever you expect to be starting your golden years, have I got a web site for you.

Try an easy-to-use retirement calculator. It determines how much money you need to put away every year if you hope to retire at age 65 with 80% of your pre-retirement income.

• You type in your current age.
• Then in another box, you put in your current salary.
• Finally, you plug in the numbers as to how much you've already saved.
• Click "submit" and after several seconds of waiting, you have your numbers.

What's especially eye-opening is that the older you get, and the lower your savings, the more money you have to save. Sure, you're thinking: Duh. But I'm just saying that to actually have those specific numbers in front of you -- it's educational.

Ever since the explosion of IndyMac, we've been getting lots of e-mails from our readers, wondering, "just how safe is my money?" As someone who doesn't hold even five figures in her bank account, I'm not at much risk of losing my (ahem) life's savings. But you're frightened, so let me answer some common questions about FDIC insurance for you:

• What kind of accounts are insured? Checking, savings, money market deposit and certificate of deposit accounts; also, some kinds of retirement accounts, including IRAs and Keogh accounts.
• How does the $100,000 limit work? If you hold any combination of accounts at one bank -- checking, savings, CDs, whatever -- your accounts are added together for insurance purposes. The only way to get past the $100,000 limit is if you have an IRA or certain other kinds of retirement accounts; these accounts are insured up to $250,000.

Cohousing, the current incarnation of what we Baby Boomers used to call communal living, turns out to be a growing senior living trend. Both in Denmark, where co-housing originated in the 1970's, and in the United States where the model has been gaining ground, senior interest is on the rise.

Boomers have only begun to retire. At its peak this retirement wave will reach as many as 10,000/day and will continue for more than a decade. Not only will there be more of us retiring but we will be "retired" for longer. The phrase that has already reached the popular lingo - aging in place - will be the theme song. Managing the phenomena, especially managing it financially, is going to require major changes. There is reason to think this change may be for the better. Certainly, the current model - from home to assisted living to nursing home - is anything but user-friendly.

In co-housing, self-sufficient units are owned or rented by the individual -- similar to a condominium -- but in addition there is communal space and shared amenities. These may include a large kitchen, dining area, media room, workshop, laundry facilities, even rooms for guests.

There are six commonly accepted characteristics of co-housing. The model is participatory -- usually from its origin - community centered with a shared decision making process, resident management and common facilities but income is individual rather than shared. Co-housing has been a leader in being environmentally friendly, a trend which will certainly continue.

Who is making it? Who is not? We've concocted retirement scorecards for some showcase retirees in entertainment, politics and sports. See the full list here.

Winner: Meg Tilly
Former occupation/notable position held: Academy Award-Nominated Actress
Activities during retirement: full-time mom; author
Retirement Report Card Grade: B+

A strikingly intense and dynamic screen presence, Meg Tilly's fade from acting came as a disappointment to fans of her work in films like 1983's The Big Chill and Agnes of God, for which she earned an Oscar nomination in 1986.

Tilly quit film in 1995 to raise her children, a decision quite possibly owing to the theme of her book Singing Songs, focusing on a sexually abusive stepfather, and that Tilly later confirmed was autobiographical.

The instinct to protect our children, from threats real or imagined, is primal and palpable. It transforms Tilly's choice to walk away from the craft at which she so excelled from confounding, to entirely logical and courageous.

That Tilly chose to write in retirement is healthy not just in helping her come to terms with a traumatic past, but in providing a new avenue for her creativity. Her second novel, Gemma, came out in 2006, was followed by Porcupine, a finalist for a major children's literature prize.

Tilly's just-short-of-"A" retirement grade perhaps owes to wishful thinking: that she may one day choose to un-retire from acting and delight her fans once again. Somehow you know if Tilly makes that choice, it will be a well-thought out and heartfelt one.

Michael Burnham is CEO of My Next Phase, a consulting firm offering non-financial retirement planning products and services (www.mynextphase.com).

Who is making it? Who is not? We've concocted retirement scorecards for some showcase retirees in entertainment, politics and sports. See the full list here.

Loser: Sumner Redstone
Former occupation/notable position held: Controlling Owner (still active), CBS Corporation; Viacom (includes Paramount, MTV Networks, etc.)
Activities during retirement: Not applicable
Retirement Report Card Grade: D-

What keeps Sumner running? Why won't (can't) he just stop?

One of the great things about being a mogul: no mandatory retirement age. That's not a bad thing, as long as said aging mogul is still operating in the best interests of all of his stakeholders: himself, his family, his friends, employees, and public shareholders.

Much of this doesn't seem the case for Redstone, 85. His latter-day career highlights include a publicly waged battle with his daughter Shari, long named his heir apparent, over corporate governance and strategic issues. The battle has played out in the press, sometimes in brutally personal detail.

His refusal to cede control has cost him other dear relationships, like that with longtime confidant Tom Freston, widely credited as the architect of the modern MTV. Redstone ousted Freston as head of Viacom for reasons few in the know understood. And Redstone's public kneecapping of Paramount money machine Tom Cruise made Cruise's own infamous Oprah couch-stomp seem downright sane.

Redstone stays just a hair shy of a retirement "F" for one, purely semantic reason: he hasn't retired. His is a cautionary tale that, regardless of its super-sized scale, has much to teach. Only Redstone may know why he keeps on, even at the expense of his most precious relationships.

For one, Redstone gives a window into how close friendships and familial relationships diverge in (what should be) retirement. You choose your friends and associates, but your family, not so much. So while Freston and Cruise have likely moved on, Shari doesn't have that option. That's unhealthy all around, and saddest for Redstone himself.

A guy like Redstone, who built a fortune estimated at $9 billion, may have made one hell of a mentor during his transition into retirement, and perhaps in retirement itself. There are so many options left unplumbed.

Work can and should continue to be part of life for retirees for whom it balances a healthy portfolio of interests and activities, and serves as a prime source of mental challenge, a feeling of social connectedness and other vital things. There's just no glory seemingly vowing to die in your head-of-the-boardroom chair, simply because you can.

Michael Burnham is CEO of My Next Phase, a consulting firm offering non-financial retirement planning products and services (www.mynextphase.com).