Retirement planning is all about the numbers. Yet, there is one number most of us take for granted or don’t even consider.
We are told that retirement is all about dollars and cents. How much money do we have to ensure our financial security? One financial services firm even had an advertising campaign where people asked, “What’s my number?” The ad portrayed people walking down the street with images of large digit amounts of money over their heads.
Other numbers become part of our retirement life as well. Blood pressure, good and bad cholesterol, body mass index, and other measures that indicate our physical health become part of our everyday concerns or at least conversations with our doctor. One health insurer ran ads stressing that you should “know your numbers.” In many ways the numbers reflecting our health and wealth become the equivalent of SAT scores in older age. And, like SAT scores, they are, at best, an incomplete approximation of our future.