How Long Do You Expect To Live?
May 19, 2008 – 6:21 amWhen I told my wife about this post she blurted out “Don’t tell me!”. 
I’m not trying to be morbid, but your expected lifetime is a key factor in retirement planning. You need to evaluate your life expectancy, and that of your spouse and/or family members, in order to evaluate your retirement income needs. In addition, adjusting your life expectancy when calculating your retirement income needs is one way to adjust for unknown risks. Just like ratcheting down your expected rate of return on investments, adjusting your life expectancy up will increase the amount of money you need to save in order to retire.
There are several online resources that can help you answer this question, including:
- Vanguard’s Life Expectancy Calculator
- BlueZones.com Vitality Compass
- The IRS
- Livingto100.com
- MSN’s Calculator
I’m 33 and married, and this is what these calculators came up with:
- Vanguard: 6% chance I’ll live to 95, 13% chance my wife will live to 95, and an 18% chance one of us will live to 95.
- The IRS: Assuming I retire at 67, my life expectancy is 83.8 years. I’m not sure what my retirement age to to do with how long I live though).
- LivingTo100: (this one takes a while to complete): 89 years.
- MSN: 89 years, and they say my biggest risk factors are “Gender” (not very actionable advice), “Family” (again, not very actionable advice), and “Weight” (they say I should weigh 184, which for me might require cutting off a limb).
- BlueZones.com: 96.2 years (must signup for a free account and then take a survey).
Looks like 83.3 to 96.2 is my range. Guess I better start saving (and/or praying for the rapture)!
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