Hope & Dreams

I just read the "This I Believe" piece from today...it made me sad, but gave me just a tiny touch of hope, nonetheless. Read what a 16 year-old thinks about the future. I am so worried that the young man's hope is badly misplaced, but it's still something that makes me hopeful. Would that hope and desire control the future, rather than Bush and radical Muslims.

I'm trying to conduct a rational assessment of the amount of money I have in my accessible and inaccessible (e.g., 401K accounts, etc.) accounts. I want to know how much of, and when, my money will be available to me. I want to calculate, coldly, what I might be able to do if I sold my house, my car, my "stuff," and all the other material things I have. How long would I last, at various levels of consumption, if I dropped out?

Am I being completely blind? How could I possibly retire at 52? I'm willing to defer it until I'm 53 if necessary. One of my sisters may want to do the same, but I don't know that she wants to contribute to my retirement and live in the same house. But maybe we could make it a compound..

I do have ideas about making money into retirement...but don't know how realistic and legitimate they are.