All this yip-yip-yapping about how hard it is for people to retire. I just returned from a trip to visit my retired parents in rural Alabama. When they were 65, they sold their house in the city and paid cash for a double-wide trailer to put on a 10-acre lot out in the country. Doesn't cost much to live down there. Because my father is homesteaded, he only pays $100 a year in taxes and the only bills are utility and food bills and his Social Security easily covers those. Anything else my father has in the way of savings and retirement income is gravy. My father is working class and never made much more than $35,000 a year his whole life and he will probably have a better retirement than many of today's yuppies who are spending it all at Starbucks and Sharper Image.
When I retire I'm doing the same thing. I'm moving out to the middle of nowhere. Someplace like rural Alabama, New Mexico, Nevada or Montana.