Retirement planning is an important question and should be dealt very tactfully. The longer you save for your retirement, you will have more money accumulated for old age. When you are planning finances for retirement answer some important questions, like at what age you want to retire at? Will you continue to live in the same house or planning to move to a smaller one? However, the most important question is how much money you will require after retirement.

Determine the needs - Make an assessment of your current expenditure and then determine how much you might need after you retire. Contact your friends who have been retired, find out if they made changes in their spending. Get your family involved in the discussion, they might contribute valuable ideas you might not have thought about. You could also get some training to be able to draw a comprehensive retirement plan.

People who do not save for retirement during their employment years may face disappointment in the quality of life during their retirement years. Three common sources of retirement income include:

1) Social security benefits
2) Employer-sponsored retirement plans
3) Personal savings and investments

As a general rule, people need 60 to 80 percent of their preretirement income to maintain their present standard of living. Social security benefits may provide about 20 to 33 percent of retirement income and company pension plans may provide another 20 percent. Because income from social security and employer-sponsored plans may not meet the retirement income needs, it is important for workers to supplement their social security and pension income with personal savings and investments.

Most people have high expectations for their retirement and are confident they would have saved enough money for it. However, many of them have not yet begun to do so and will wait until it's too late. Financial counselors find a growing number of older Americans, in or nearing retirement, mired in debt and seeking debt counseling with little or no money set aside for retirement.

The best way is to start retirement planning early in life. This will help you build up your savings and depend upon it when you decide to stop working and retire. In fact, it is good to think about your financial planning for retirement right from your first job. Personal financial planning for retirement depends primarily on investments you make and the risk involved in it. And obviously, the higher the reward rate the higher will be the element of risk. This risk is battled by people every day whether your investment will end up with the same amount of money or will your money grow.

Retirement planning is much like planning a trip. Any plan begins with establishing your destination, or goal, and a timetable for taking each step toward that goal.

Retirement is expensive. Experts estimate that you'll need about 70% of your pre-retirement income - lower earners, 90% or more - to maintain your standard of living when you stop working.