Date:     2/12/04
Contact:  Nancy M. Porter, (864) 656-5718 
Writer:  Susan Bedingfield, (864) 656-3876; sbeding@clemson.edu

Extension web site provides farmers
with retirement planning resource

	CLEMSON - Can you put a price tag on retirement? 
	According to an Extension Family Resource Management 
specialist, the price tag is the most important aspect of retirement. 
	Thanks to a new Extension web site, farmers now have help 
figuring out retirement planning.
	"Farm families may find calculating the cost of retirement 
particularly tricky.  I think people avoid figuring it out because they
are afraid of the answer," said Nancy Porter, an Extension family 
resource management specialist with Clemson University Extension, and 
co-chair of a national effort to educate families on how to prepare for 
financial security in their later years.  
	Putting a price tag on retirement dreams is the goal of the 
"Retirement Estimator for Farm Families" web site. It can be found at 
www.ces.purdue.edu/farmretirement. 
	This site is specific to farm families because of the unique 
options they encounter in planning for retirement. Unlike many people 
who leave their jobs all at once, farmers often retire in stages.
	The site helps estimate the annual income a family would 
require for retirement and suggests options for matching expenses with 
projected available funds. 
	Since the site is designed specifically for farmers, inputs for 
income from rented crop and pastureland, income from the sale of 
machinery and other farm-related income and expenses are available.
	Retirement planning for farmers can be unique for a number of 
reasons.
	"Most of us view retirement as a time to walk away from work 
and lock the door behind us," Porter said. "We typically don't take 
resources other than our pensions into retirement.
	Many farmers retire with their assets, such as land and 
equipment. Figuring out when and how to part with those assets is part 
of retirement planning, added Porter.
	Other retiring problems facing farmers include 
intergenerational issues, sibling concerns and communicating those 
plans to family members.
	The retirement estimator provides data based on information 
about family expenses, life expectancy and sources of income. The 
information is provided for calculation purposes only and is not kept 
at the site. There is no record of personal information kept anywhere, 
so the retirement planning information provided is kept confidential.
	In addition to calculating retirement expenses, the site 
provides links to additional retirement planning resources. It also 
offers examples of spending patterns for other farm families.
	"Retirement planning is a complicated issue for anyone to 
handle," said Porter. "It's our goal to provide farmers an easy 
calculator to work through some possible solutions to the question: 
'How can I afford to retire?'"
	The resource was created with funding provided by the U.S. 
Department of Agriculture Cooperative State Research, Education and 
Extension Service.
				END