Over 50, underfunded, and ill-prepared for retirement. Unfortunately, that’s an all-too-common scenario for the Baby Boomer generation – those born between 1946 and 1964 -- many of whom are still smarting from the economic downturn and are now looking back at their earlier financial choices with regret.

Should they have bought that house at the height of the housing bubble? Should they have taken out that student loan? Should they have pursued a higher-paying career field?

But doubts like these are just part of the new reality for today’s Boomers, says Stan Hinden, author of “How to Retire Happy” and a widely published columnist on retirement issues.

“I think Boomers are somewhat disappointed in the way things have turned out in recent years,” he says, “and I think they have a right to feel that something unfair has taken place. You can’t any longer buy a CD or invest in a money market fund and get any kind of respectable return, because interest rates are so low and have been so low and will continue to be so low that people have lost some years of investment potential and income. People can hope that that the situation improves but I don’t think it will very quickly, and people have a right to be disappointed in that.”

But all isn’t lost, Hinden says. Boomers looking to salvage a financial future from this mess will need to adjust their plans, possibly pushing back their retirement date by a few years, and start saving aggressively to make up for lost interest income.

“Once people are aware of their situation they’re going to have to find ways to cope as they can,” Hinden explains. “I don’t think there’s any immediate help coming, except maybe for housing, but the interest rate problem is very real. Hopefully by being active and alert and careful in their spending, people will, when they set up their retirement budgets, leave themselves as much leeway as possible, figuring that the amount of growth in their assets going forward is going to be pretty small.”

We reached out to the Baby Boomers in our Yahoo! Contributor Network community to hear about their own personal financial regrets. Several of their stories are below.

Why Didn’t I Save for Retirement?

“I entered into adulthood and even had a family without ever hearing terms such as ‘401(k)’ and had no idea how to plan for my future financially. Worse yet is that I am college educated but still had no financial knowledge. I did not know which way to turn to find out anything about financially preparing for later life, so I didn't.

“As some Baby Boomers settle into an enjoyable retirement, I am one of the other Baby Boomers. There is no retirement for me, not even a burial plan. For Baby Boomers like myself who followed that popular song of the mid-1960s, ‘Let's Live for Today’ by the Grass Roots, what a mistake it may have been to let the title be a motto, only living for ‘today.’ I learned all too late that if you do not take the necessary steps to learn about financial planning as early as possible, it can be a disaster that will undoubtedly be regretted.” -- Donna Hicks

I Squandered My Intellectual Capital

“In 1989, my husband and I became parents. In my typical, all-or-nothing fashion, I embraced motherhood with gusto. My husband became the breadwinner while I cared for our children at home. By 2001, we had six children. For all those years, I did nothing to maintain my contact with the business world. I took no classes to update my programming skills or to maintain my other technical skills. I enjoyed nursing babies, teaching preschoolers to read, sewing clothes for the family, and even canning all summer long. I was living my ‘Little House on the Prairie’ dream. I gave no thought to what I would do after the children were grown.

“When our youngest child entered school, I had to build a new resume from scratch. I earned a master's degree in library science, hoping to land a position as an academic librarian at one of the many colleges in my city. I would have been better off if I had invested some time and money in continuing to take actuarial exams after I left the workforce or in pursuing an MBA in the evenings while I worked in Chicago. Instead, I waited too long to earn a low-value degree in a declining job market.” -- Kimberly Schimmel

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