The Five Stages of Retirement

Paying for your retirement years is likely the single most expensive undertaking in your life, and chances are you've already started financially preparing for it.

But no matter how much you've saved for this next stage in life, your dream of retirement could become a nightmare if you're not emotionally prepared as well.

"When I ask people to tell me about their retirement plan, they describe their 401(k) and IRAs," says Dan Veto, senior vice president of San Francisco-based AgeWave, a think tank and consultancy focused on aging and retirement. "But that's just how they're going to fund their retirement, not what they'll be doing during retirement. Unfortunately, people put more time into planning a trip to Disneyworld than how they'll spend the next 35 years of their life."

This lack of preparation can come back to haunt retirees. Veto says that the most important factor in determining a happy retirement isn't how much money people have saved for it but how much they have planned for it. ...