Retiring Well

Lee Collins, 80, made only three annual payments before she needed the long-term-care policy she bought at age 70. She suffers from Alzheimer's and is nursing home-bound. Without insurance her illness "would have completely depleted her savings," says her son Peter Collins. Long-term-care insurance, Peter figures, has saved the family at least $200,000. "We're a 'Thank you, God' story," he says when he thinks about the three payments of $2,500 each that bought this kind of security. "We're making out like bandits."

"It used to be that long-term-care-insurance plans were only for older people," says Richard Coorsh of the Health Insurance Association of America. But in 1996, Congress passed, and President Clinton signed, a bill making the benefits tax free, a not so subtle endorsement of and push for boomers to buy such policies. On average, a policy that covers $100 a day at a nursing home (with inflation protection) costs just $802 a year for a 50-year-old and $1,829 for a 65-year-old, according to a study of national averages by the H.I.A.A.

The lesson in all this: retire happy, healthy and with enough money to afford the activities you most enjoy. You may not choose to spend your preretirement years toiling in the halls of academe, like Keller; or your retirement ones playing poolside bingo, like the Goldbergs; and, unlike Cavanaugh, you may decide the volatility of the stock market isn't for an aging heart.

Karl Ritzler, however, has some retirement advice worth repeating: "Neither of my parents lived to be 60. I want to end the grind of the workday and do more of the things I enjoy... I may even work at the local Wal-Mart," he says with a laugh before adding, "This is a learning experience; nothing is set in stone." Until you are--but that's an entirely different kind of retirement.