This is not the first time that I am writing a post on retirement planning being scary. Nor is it likely to be the last one.

Let me just enumerate why Retirement Planning is scary:

1. You have no clue how long will you live: NONE of us have a clue whether we will live like A K Hangal (age 95), or like Rajesh Khanna (age 70) or like Divya Bharti (age 19 years) or like Sanjeev Kumar (age 47). Many of you reading this post would have gone past the age of 19, but the others may still be applicable to you!

People tell me very confidently “I will die at 65 years age”. I can only chuckle. None of us have a clue, but the confidence with which people throw the number ’65’ or 75 is unbelievable. I ask them to do a small exercise – I ask them to find the average age IN THEIR FAMILY at the time of death. After some breaking of the heads the husband and wife find the age at which all their ancestors died. The age comes to a very unpleasant 86 years.

Then I tell them add about 10 years. So there is a chance that you will live till age 96 years of age.

Do not like it? Pray for euthanasia.

2. Your Money management skills suck: See what is the return that you are getting on your TOTAL PORTFOLIO. I would be surprised if you can get 8% post tax on a consistent basis. So if you cannot get a decent REAL RETURN (post tax return minus inflation) you need a HUGE CORPUS.

3. Once you are 70 years of age and you do not have a trusted adviser (I look after my 85 year old dad’s portfolio, and I have no clue who will do it for me) you will need to keep your money in bank fixed deposits, one income fund, ANNUITIES. Given this lousy portfolio management skills that you have and this pathetic portfolio, YOU needs a real big corpus that is going to help YOU and Your spouse for the next 30 years of your life (I am assuming that your wife is 5 years younger than you).

4. You have no clue about your medical expenses, old age support expenses, your children’s financial mistakes that YOU will bail out expenses, – the list is endless, but was supporting friends who were running well…

You do not need more, right?