You may find this hard to believe, but in 1970, the average American family could live comfortably with a median income of around $8,700, buy a nice home for less than $30,000 and fill up the Chevrolet ("$2 worth, please") with 36 cents per gallon gasoline.

Heck, I (Ken here) bought a Mercury Cougar convertible in 1968 for $3800 and wondered how I'd be able to pay for it. We bought our first home in the early '70s for $51,000 and scurried around to make the mortgage payments.

We don't have to tell you: Those days are long gone!

Everything is more expensive now and that makes planning for retirement even more crucial. Unfortunately, the news is pretty bleak almost everywhere you look:

• It's estimated that as many as 75 million working Americans have not saved enough to comfortably retire.
• One out of every three Social Security beneficiaries depend on their monthly check for 90% of their income. That's not nearly enough.
• Approximately one-half of America's private sector workers either do not have access to or have not signed up for a 401(k) plan or some other kind of employer-sponsored retirement plan
• Baby Boomers are now saving about one-third of what they need for retirement.
• The average worker has saved only $25,000 for retirement. How far will that go? Not far at all!

The time to start planning for retirement is NOW, no matter what your age, and we're here to help. We've come up with some general guidelines to help catch up, no matter what stage you're currently in.

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