By Bob Seawright
(Bob Seawright is chief investment and information officer for Madison Avenue Securities in San Diego.)

On the day I write this column, I made my last payment towards the education of my children. Had I paid via actual paper draft rather than electronic transfer, I would have waited to receive the cancelled check back and framed it. All three of my kids have now graduated with honors from fine universities and have done so without any debt. All of them have gotten good and fulfilling jobs. None of them has moved back home.

Woo-hoo!

Providing college for them was a key goal for my wife and me and I am (obviously) proud that we have accomplished it and even prouder of the accomplishments of our children. My wife and I have plenty of reasons to be proud. We might even throw a party to celebrate. But achieving this goal came at a cost. Our retirement planning is not where we would like it to be, and we are not alone in that.

The Retirement Confidence Survey (RCS) from the private, nonprofit Employee Benefit Research Institute has gathered opinion data from workers and retirees as to what they believe their financial status to be for over 20 years. The most recent survey results, published in March, once again show that worker confidence in having enough money to live comfortably throughout retirement is not very high.

Only 14% of people are “very confident” about their retirement prospects (compared with 27% as recently as 2007) while 23% say they are not at all confident about having a comfortable retirement.

People recognize the trouble they are in, and with good reason.