I've gotten lots of valuable help from your column over the years, but have always wondered about your personal retirement strategy. Have you been faithful to your own advice? -- Jim K., Madison, Wis.

I haven't said much about my own finances in the more than 1,000 Ask the Expert columns I've written over the past 13 years. Everyone's situation is different, so I wouldn't want people to assume they should follow a particular strategy or invest in a certain way just because "The Expert" has done so.

But since I'll be leaving MONEY at the end of this month, I thought it would be appropriate to share the overall approach I've taken to retirement planning during my 26 years at MONEY in the hope that readers might apply it not in every particular, but in a general way to their own planning.

I'm not going to get into the nitty-gritty details. My wife would have my head if I started divulging account balances and such. Rather, I'll break down my retirement-planning efforts into two broad categories, specifically: What I've Done Reasonably Well and What I Could Have Done Better.

What I've done reasonably well

The single most effective thing I've done is save on a regular basis.

Whether my zeal for saving reflects an innate impulse, a reaction to my family's precarious financial situation as I was growing up, a rational decision to stash away money for the future or a combination of these, I can't say. But I can say that for whatever reason I've always tried to live below my means and contribute the max (or as close as I could get to it) to tax-advantaged retirement plans.

For example, as a freelance writer prior to joining MONEY, I opened and funded a Keogh account and then a SEP-IRA, both of which are retirement savings plans for the self-employed.

Once I became a MONEY staffer, I made it a point to take advantage of virtually every opportunity my employer offered to save, including the company 401(k) plan, which I funded to the max pretty much every year.

I also applied the 401(k) system of automatic payroll deductions to saving outside of tax-advantaged plans. In the late '90s, I set up an automatic investing plan, directing a mutual fund company to transfer $300 a month (later increased to $500) from my checking account to a stock fund. I felt a pinch at first, but after a few months I adjusted quickly to having a little less spendable income.

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Our expert reveals his personal retirement strategy

TORONTO (Reuters) - Retirement planning once meant plugging a client's 65th birthday into a spreadsheet and going from there. But with more Canadians than ever saying they plan to retire gradually, financial advisers are faced with a growing set of unknowns as they help clients plan for their golden years.

"It's becoming totally different. People are no longer retiring as much as they are redirecting," said Jill Chambers, a certified financial planner at Integrated Wealth Management in Calgary.

"They are going from a predictable full-time salaried position to something totally different. It isn't just a line in the sand: 'Today I'm a worker and tomorrow I'm a retiree.'"

A majority of Canadians say they plan to work after retirement or transition to retirement with a gradual easing of workload. Experts expect the trend to continue as people live longer and healthier lives, making work possible, and carry more debt into retirement, making work necessary.

A survey released in January by Desjardins Insurance found 75 percent of Canadians planned to transition into retirement over time, rather than stopping work suddenly.

And while financial need seems an obvious reason to work longer, the survey showed just as many of those who felt financially secure wanted a gradual retirement as those who felt less secure.

"The traditional notion of retirement of packing up your office at the end of your last day and completely changing your life is ending," Angela Iermieri, financial planner with Desjardins Group, said of the survey.

A similar survey by BMO Financial Group, also released in January, found 81 percent of Canadians plan on working in some capacity during their retirement. Some 39 percent plan to start their own business after age 65 - with 75 percent motivated by the need for income and 62 percent citing a desire to stay mentally focused.

While the trend has an obvious upside in that clients may need to draw on less retirement savings in the early years of retirement, advisers must plan for a range of possible outcomes and expenses beyond the traditional planning scenarios.

"Because there is no fixed date, it makes the financial planning process more complex," said Marlena Pospiech, senior manager at BMO's wealth planning group.

More:
Gradual Retirement Poses Planning Challenges

The Employee Benefit Research Institute has released its 23rd annual Retirement Confidence Survey. The findings showed the lowest level of confidence about the respondent's ability to retire comfortably (or at all) in the survey's history.

While some of this might be tied to the recent economic downturn and the financial difficulties it has caused, I suspect that a portion is also tied to a lack of planning for retirement. For the people in that category, here are four steps to boost your confidence in your ability to retire.

Determine Your Retirement Needs.

Take a look at how you would like to live in retirement and try to place a price tag on that lifestyle, ideally in terms of a monthly figure. Here are some questions to ask yourself:

--Will I stay in my current house or relocate?

--Will I have a mortgage in retirement?

--What do I plan to do in retirement? Travel? Other activities? What will this cost?

--Will I live in a low or a high-cost part of the country (or the world)?

--Will I work during part of your retirement?

Answers are likely easier the closer you are to retirement, but at the very least try to come up with a number or a couple of numbers that might meet your monthly retirement needs to at least give yourself an idea of where you are heading.

Read more here:
4 Steps to Boost Your Retirement Confidence

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhsiO8OyaVw

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