Start planning now for your retirement

Don't you love these lists of "to-do's" before you retire.

Most of them are pretty shallow and self-serving. Like "make sure you have invested your money with me" suggestions from financial planners.

But Joan Strewler-Carter and Stephen Carter, founders of the Life Options Institute, have a different approach.

They want you to feel good about yourself when you retire.

They're dedicated to helping people plan for life after age 50.

Planning for life is different from planning how you're going to pay for whatever life happens to come along.

"Hopefully, we can help you find new meaning for a start in a new direction," Carter said.

And that's particularly important for couples who are trying to set joint goals, Strewler-Carter said.

"It's amazing to me the different goals each person may have. Like she wants to get her Ph.D. and teach, and he wants to live in a log cabin and write a book. It's important to set a life goal together," she said.

We talked about non-financial challenges and questions for some of the 76 million baby boomers heading toward retirement. Here are 10 of their suggestions. For more information on the Life Options Institute, see: whatsnextinyourlife.com.

 Start your planning engines. Avoid the sudden and often drastic changes that retirement can bring by starting to plan for it five to 10 years in advance. Boomers need to re-evaluate goals or set some new ones periodically because life constantly changes.

 Review your finances. Determine your post-retirement budget. Most people under?estimate how much money they will need for retirement.

Consider that less than one-quarter of the workers 55 and older — just 23 percent — have savings and investments totaling $250,000 or more, according to a study published by the Employee Benefit Research Institute.

Most have less than $100,000.

 Consider working a few more years. The average U.S. retirement age is 63 — but there are benefits for working even two or three additional years. A 62-year-old with a $100,000 salary and a $500,000 nest egg will see his annual retirement income rise 6 percent for every additional year in the work force.