8/20/2012 3:18 PM ET

By Samuel Weigley, 24/7 Wall St.

To retire well, you should prepare well in advance. But if you're in your 50s and haven't started planning yet, these steps are the place to start.

Once people reach their 50s, they finally see retirement on the horizon. They start envisioning that time when they can stop going to work and instead spend their days on the golf course, on the beach or with their families. Yet many people have not saved nearly enough for retirement by the time they are 50. A recent survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, or EBRI, found that 60% of workers born between 1946 and 1964 have less than $100,000 for retirement. In fact, 40% have saved less than $25,000.

24/7 Wall St. interviewed retirement-related experts from brokerage firms, banks, retirement advocacy groups and independent financial advisers. With their help, 24/7 identified the eight actions you should take if you have not prepared to retire.

Financial advisers generally recommend people begin saving for retirement starting in their 20s to take full advantage of compounding interest. Although the financial advisers who spoke to 24/7 Wall St. say it is very hard to give concrete estimates on how much should be allocated toward equities and fixed-income investments, they say it is best to cut risk as one approaches a target retirement age.

Not saving up enough for retirement used to be less of a problem. Workers in previous generations often received pensions from their employers, allowing retirees to know exactly how much money they would get once retired. But employers have increasingly shifted that responsibility onto the employees through 401k and other defined-contribution plans.

The rest is here:
How to catch up on retirement planning