Planning for your retirement has to begin many years in advance. In order to have a financially successful retirement, all you need to do is to ensure that your expenses are less than your retirement income. Sounds simple, isn't it? The fact is, it take a lot of careful planning, and -in most cases -a lot of hard work to reach that goal.

Here is a list of things that you may want to look into as you start planning for your retirement:

• Document All Your Current Expenses:. Make a detailed list of all your expenses -including housing, food, transportation, utilities, insurance, travel, and entertainment.
  
• Extrapolate Those Numbers: Adjust the above estimate upward by adjusting it for increased cost of living, as well as for added cost of various services (health care, insurance, etc.) that you may need during your retirement years.
  
• Estimate The Cost of Your Retirement Lifestyle: Assuming that you have already decided on the city/state where you want to retire, you need to now come up with your estimated cost of living in the area you wish to retire in. Remember, we are talking about projected costs in future -around the time of your retirement and beyond -not the currently prevailing living costs.
  
• Estimate Your Retirement Income: If you are planning on working part-time after you retire, you need to estimate your expected retirement income and jot it down. You need to estimate your projected retirement income for several years past your expected date of retirement.
  
• Document Your Estimated Social Security Income: Your may want to request a fresh copy of your current Social Security statement by calling SSA tall-free at: 1-800-772-1213 or by going to Social Security Administration website. Write down your estimated Social Security Income at the time of your retirement.
  
• Prepare a Detailed Statement of Your Employee Retirement Benefits: Include information from your pension plan, as well as your 401(k), 403(b), 457 or other IRA retirement accounts from your current or previous jobs. Estimate and record your future retirement savings and investments based on this information.
  
• List Assets in All Your Savings and Investment Accounts: At the time of your planned retirement.
  
• Estimate Your Expected Longevity: Consult any of the many longevity estimate guides that are readily avaialable on the Internet. Alternatively, you can get one from a financial planner.

Now that you have estimated your expenses, your retirement income, and know the number of years you are expected to be around, it is time to dust off that financial calculator, and get ready to crunch some numbers. If you do not feel too comfortable doing all of this by yourself, you may want to consult with a trained/certified financial advisor, or a trained retirement planner.

Your first round of number crunching is going to probably deliver you some numbers that would make you want to go for a brisk walk, or make you want to have a tall drink. Upon scrutiny, you will probably find that either you missed some numbers, or that you were not quite accurate with some of those estimates. After several rounds of number crunching and tweaking, you will probably see your retirement plan beginning to emerge out of all this chaos. When you get to that stage, it is generally a good idea to have a fresh pair of eyes -preferably those of a certified financial planner -to look at those numbers and further refine/validate your analysis. Remember, you are not really expected to come up with a winning recipe at this early stage. You are simply kick-starting a process that may take a very long time, and several iterations of number crunching -possibly followed by more than a few brisk walks and tall drinks -before you would have a retirement plan that you would feel comfortable with. Rinse, and Repeat until you have a plan that not only appears to meet your retirement goals, but is also realistic. Of course, your revised/final plan would probably include several things that you would have to do between now and your planned date of retirement. Seeing your retirement plan taking shape, nonetheless, has to be a truly exciting experience!