http://www.onwallstreet.com/article.cfm?articleId=3307

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One of the surprising findings from the research world is the large number of households that experience a sharp drop in spending at retirement--a much steeper slide than the 70%-to-80% rule would suggest (at least if they were doing their planning right). It's not clear whether this decline is intentional, but for many individuals, there's a much bigger drop in their standard of living than one would expect. This suggests that more of us are willing to settle for a bare-bones retirement.



This article's findings does not surprise me. I have long suspected that needing to replace 70-80% of your post retirement income was self serving for the investment services industry. The trick to living on a barebones budget is to still have a fulfilling retirement in other words "Retire Well on Less".