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You may have heard that people spend more time planning their annual vacations than they do planning for retirement. Whether you start your retirement planning years or weeks before that glorious day, you will follow similar steps to determine the lifestyle you can expect in retirement.

A traditional IRA allows you to withdraw up to $10,000 in order to finance a deposit for a first-time home purchase without paying an early-withdrawal penalty (usually 10%). But you may still have to pay income tax on the withdrawal.

As many of you assess the affordability of retirement, you may find one of your primary resources in the form of a pension plan offered through your employer. A pension is essentially a fixed annuity that can provide a stream of income for someone’s lifetime. With a fixed annuity, you are betting that you will live a long life, and the insurance or pension company is betting that you will not. For this reason, they are willing to pay you income for life. The calculation that they use to determine how much to pay you is based on, among other factors, your life expectancy. If you live to receive one check beyond your life expectancy, you win. If you do not, the company wins.