I haven't worn a foundation in at least five years & don't miss it. As I've aged ('m 70) I seem to want less 'heaviness' or 'weight' on my skin. (I also don't miss having to put it on.) However, I have discovered a product this past year that I'm really pleased with: Olay Definity Color Recapture. It's a lightly tinted sheer moisturizer, light in texture & not sparkley. It makes my skin looks lighter & almost dewy. I find it at Target, Rite-Aid, CVS, etc. You could check products at these stores; they carry Maybelline, Olay, Neutrogena, L'Oreal, Max Factor & other lines that don't necessarily cater to the under-50 crowd. I use a powder blush & want to share a hint I read years ago. Instead of using a separate eye shadow (which may no longer look good at upper ages), stroke on powder blush under the brow above the eyelid. Also use it on the tip of the chin to add definition to the face. I'm echoing moonshadow - you are a good daughter. When we get so old, we age in ways we don't expect & it's pretty discouraging & depressing. We think & feel the same inside as we did years ago, but there's this ugly person on the outside.

Am in my late 50's. We don't have longterm disability insurance. It's a real gamble. My dad died young, was cared for at home by my mom--no real expense there. My mother just died this past November at age 85--she was at Thanksgiving dinner with us one night, and gone the next. Long term disability? Nope--she was still living independently in her own apartment. Now, note that in her 40's she had a number of health issues--anyone guessing would probably have figured that she'd either have died early, or have been disabled for a long time, and needed a lot of care in later years. Fact is, other than her regular check ups, visits to the podiatrist to care for her feet, and having her cataracts operated on, Mom hadn't had any serious medical treatment for over 20 years when she died. My father-in-law went very quickly, too--at age 82. He was still working as a plumber in November, spent a couple of months in the hospital, then died the beg. of February. I'm not saying you should or shouldn't get the insurance--only you can decide if it's right for you. But to my way of thinking, I don't see all that many people in my life who actually need longterm care. Most seem to either go quickly, or be able to manage their needs anyway. And the insurance companies are banking on the fact that their scare tactics will get lots of people to sign up--many who will never make a claim. For example, I've got an aunt who has had earthquake insurance for many years--no matter to her that we live in an area of the country that has never had a major earthquake in anyone living's memory. But they were more than happy to sell her a policy. I think she also has flood insurance--but she lives on the 6th floor of an apartment building. We also don't get floods of any size around here. That would have to be some departure from the norm for her to collect! And what about the safety of investing in an insurance company? What if the company goes out of business in years to come? Or waht if the funds are mismanaged or depleted by embezzlement. There is a huge scandal in the country right now regarding pre-paid funerals. People paid ahead to make sure their wishes would be taken care of, and many of the funeral homes have stolen those funds and families are having to come up with money to pay the cost of a funeral twice--the second time at a much higher price. Personally (and I'm not telling you what to do)--I prefer to save and control my own money. I'm not a fan of allowing others to take my funds--as in prepaid funerals, extra insurance, IRA's, etc. I do have one small SEP account, but only because I had a year where I needed some serious deductions, and that one was a reasonable way of keeping a few more of my own dollars. It's important to me to have the freedom to invest as I choose, and to move my money from here to there, depending upon what the economy is doing. I've just known too many people who have relied on others to nurture their savings, and lost everything. My sister is a case in point--worked for over 30 years for one company, was up in corporate management when the company was sold and dessimated by a larger one. She had a GOOD pension plan--but the funds were stolen by the new management, and when the company folded, she got a measely, one-time payout of $16,000!

I agree with everyone so far - ramp up your savings, lower your spending, and do extra payments on the mortgage debt. Please don't take money out of your IRA to pay your mortgage off. At your tax rate, that's really robbing Peter to pay Paul. You have a good start on your investment account. Think of it as you've got half and your spouse has half. You mention your pension, what does your spouse have? We don't need to know, you just need to think about this. Half a million $$ on a 4% draw-down - which is generous, most advisors nowadays advise 3% - is $20K per spouse, before taxes. With tax hikes almost certain to come in the future, what are you estimating as your future tax rate? Have you looked into Roth conversions? Instead of throwing all your bonuses and extra funds into the mortgage, you might get a better return by splitting the money and using some of it to pay the taxes on the conversions each year before retirement. Also, your spouse needs to roll over those 401k's into one IRA. Trust me, if anything happens to her, it's a paperwork headache for the survivor to get that done. It takes time and energy, and when somebody's grieving, it's the last thing one wants to do. But it's a necessity if you don't want the IRS to get involved. I'm going to offer some questions for you to think about because you are at the perfect point to start doing serious retirement planning. The reason you need to figure out if your assumptions are correct for future savings and the best return on spending, is that if those assumptions are wrong or plain bad luck intervenes, you still have time to adjust and make corrections. Have you and your wife sat down to talk specifically about what both of you envision retirement to be? What's your 'bucket list'? What's hers? What do you want to do in retirement? How much will it cost to do those things? For example: I retired 2 yrs before DH did. Our expenses did NOT go down and our income stayed static because we were contributing as much as we could to DH's 401k. But when he did retire, our expenses jumped overall. We have retirement health benefits, so there was no extra cost there. But we wanted to travel locally, and even that required several hundred $$ of clothing and travel accessories. We were able to donate an entire carload of work clothes to charity, which was great for deserving poor folks, but no one was going to pay us for them. That first year we spent almost four months out of twelve traveling through Northern CA and the PNW, mostly car trips but a few airline trips, at a cost of almost $25K post-tax. We do what I consider to be mid-level travel: not budget or RV travel, but not luxury high-end places either. If I were in your situation I would find a certified or registered financial advisor to run some numbers. What will happen if one of you dies? What happens if one of you gets disabled and needs care? What happens to the surviving spouse if death or disability happens BEFORE retirement? Are you adequately insured to mitigate the bigger risks in your life (and it takes some analysis to figure out what those risks are, that might prevent you from achieving your goals)? Do you have enough $$ coming in for a sufficient 'cushion', especially if you intend to maintain two houses in retirement? Do you know what medical insurance will cost for a pre-Medicare senior? What if a serious medical condition happens and one spouse becomes uninsurable, or at least rateable? Can the budget afford the insurance and any needed medications or extra co-pays? How do you plan to handle long term care costs for one of you? For both of you? These kinds of questions are just as important, perhaps even more so, than the simple question of "should I pay off my mortgage with IRA money." HTH, and good luck going forward.

Hi cheery one, I'm pleased that you're happy with the "pro"s of your retirement. And somewhat sad that you're feeling that you're not keeping up to the mark of what you'd hoped/planned to do. If you feel the need to beat yourself over the back about that - make sure it's with a wet noodle ... and only five strokes, O.K? As for the "average" retiree, I don't feel that I have too much of a handle on that ... and wonder what level of expertise you may claim in that department? I think that it's important to do things that we can be pleased with ourselves for having done, at the end of the day ... week ... month ... year. Something that I note to have been scarcely mentioned in this thread so far is the need that all of us retirees have to concern ourselves about (as well as people in the workforce) is the erosion of the value of our income (and, for us retirees, our assets) due to inflation, every year for about the last 80. There hasn't been much increase in incomes in recent years, except for the wealthy few ... but the prices keep going up ... and for most of us, those prices of much of the goods and services that we buy have been and are going up faster than the official rate of inflation. When we put money in the bank, or buy bonds, etc. which pay us the same number of dollars after several years that we gave them in the first place, apart from the "rent" on the money, it isn't only taxes and living expenses that much come out of the earnings ("rent on the money"), but an allowance for inflation, as well, in order to keep the purchasing power of those assets equal in ten years to what it is now. Good wishes to you for dealing well with the days ahead: may they be as many as please you, with good health, friends, enough bucks to meet your needs, things to do and a few challenges, here and there. ole joyfuelled