A lot of your ability to be living your best life could come down to money.
The average person only lived to age 61 when the Social Security Act was created more than 80 years ago.
Now you can collect Social Security as early as age 62, but the average American may live almost 20 years after that.
If you're planning a life of leisure---a life of travel---you'd better make sure you will not outlive your money.
Rae Vermeal of the Pima Council on Aging says Social Security was never meant to be your only income, but people do try to tough it out on Social Security alone. The Council can offer advice to beef up your finances.
"There are various utility discounts. There's a tax exemption for homeowners where during tax season they can come here; we can assist them to get some of the taxes they paid back. There's a renters' rebate also during tax season that someone who's renting can get. That is absolutely a help for someone who's living strictly on social security."
The ideal is to start saving for retirement when you have long years of employment ahead. If it's too late for that, you may have to spend more years on the job and find more aggressive ways to save.
Rae Vermeal says, “Some people have taken on a roommate if they have a house and they're still paying on a mortgage. They'll do different things like that. Some people will sell things. They have a second car they really don't use a whole lot. Anything like that. There are things we all take for granted in our lives that we wouldn't want to live without but sometimes we have to really look at that and give something up."
And Vermeal says retirees may not have set aside money for a medical crisis and that can throw a terrible wrench in your retirement.
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