Retirement?

The challenge of retirement is how to spend time without spending money.
- Author Unknown

Well, who would have thought that in only a few short years we would actually be thinking about retirement, or actually there already if you're lucky. Retirement was something that your parents did, and was wayyyyyyyyyyy down the road. Well, the road got shorter before we knew it, and now, especially in the current economy, a lot of us are scrambling to figure out if we can actually retire at all. We are seriously looking at our retirement accounts, pension plans, and Social Security facts, figuring up what we will actually need, and praying that we will win the lottery in the next couple of years.
First of all, I am not a qualified retirement analyst (disclaimer here), and I am muddling through this just like millions of others out there.
There are, I discovered, although it shouldn't surprise me, a lot of facets to the whole Social Security angle. Of course, we all know that if you take your SS early, at, say 62, you will get a lot less than you do at 66 or 67. There are two opinions on this- (of course), and what it seems to all boil down too, is a throw of the dice.
Any way you look at it, if you wait until 66 or 67 to retire, and live, say, twenty more years, you are going to collect more in the long run than if you retire at 62. Others have told me that they would rather get "something" now, than take the chance of dying earlier and not getting much of anything back. This is a grim prospect anyway you look at it.
Of course, sometimes we need to retire early, and there is no real choice, due to health problems, loss of job ect.
There are a lot of good websites discussing the pros and cons, complete with retirement calculators, estimated amount of funds needed after retirement, and future inflationary trends,-all of which will give you a massive headache, but are, unfortunately important.

Here are some sites that may be important in your future.

Social Security online
http://www.ssa.gov/

How Baby Boomers Will Change Retirement
http://seniorliving.about.com/od/retirement/a/newboomerretire.htm

Senior Citizens Resources- U.S. Gov.
http://www.usa.gov/Topics/Seniors.shtml