What I can tell from reader mail is that we put a steep discount on the future. Think of them as repressed party animals, living vicariously through the sustained bacchanals of our longevity. In another, I examined the pool of life-years a group of 100,000 people expect to have and proposed that we view it as a Cup of Life so we'd have some idea when we had come close to the bottom of the cup. Here, derived from data in a 2012 study by the Census Bureau, is what a group of 65-year-olds can expect by age 80: Five percent of the population age 65 and over is living in assisted-living facilities or nursing homes. [...] if you daydream about doing a lot of things but find they don't get done, it's time to get serious. [...] divide your spending into core expenses (shelter, transportation, food, clothing, etc.) and discretionary spending (vacations, travel and hobbies). [...] whatever your age, prepare to adapt.