The second step in retirement planning is to compare the Income and Expenses.

Of course there are 3 possibilities:
Expenses = Income
Expenses > Income
Expenses < Income

Without getting into any relative terms, situation 1 and 2 are close to disaster. Also remember if expenses are only slightly lesser than income, the demon called inflation will quickly move you from the 3rd category to the other categories quickly.

So you are ‘comfortable’ only if your income is far higher than your expenses.

If your expenses are high (a matter of fact, not of opinion) you need to reduce expenses dramatically. How expensive is life after all?

Simple let us say you have 3 meals a day and each meal on an average costs about Rs. 75 (frankly at McDonalds it will cost you Rs. 90 for a breakfast and Rs. 125 for a meal – totaling Rs. 340 a day!). Your food cost per person per day is Rs. 225 (75×3)

Your food costs are Rs. 225 x 30 days x 12 months x 25 years = Rs.  20,25,000 per person in retirement. Just food costs for you and your spouse is Rs. 40 lakhs. This, after ignoring inflation!

those of you in anger mode and denial mode, I welcome your brickbats!