One of the greatest retirement fears people have is outliving their money. Rather than focus on the fear, let’s focus on making sure that doesn’t happen. Here are a few tips:

Below are four important questions to ask yourself before collecting on social security:

Gone are the days of compelling financial data, printing it out, organizing it in a three-ring binder, and sending you on your way. And that’s a good thing. You see, the moment the paperwork comes out of the printer, the documents are already outdated, because your financial investments are constantly moving.

What is your greatest fear of retirement? It may not surprise you to learn 51% of investors polled on this question said their greatest fear was outliving their money. As life expectancy increases, health care costs rise, and our concerns about the availability of Social Security grows, it’s easy to understand that kind of fear.

Let’s talk about the rule of 72. It’s a term some of you may never have heard of, but it can be a quick and useful way to estimate the number of years it will take to double your return given a fixed rate. The hardest part is assuming what a fixed rate return should be. Here’s an example: You invest $100,000 at 6% per year, so it will take roughly 12 years to double your money. You can figure that out by dividing 72 by 6% to get 12.

When Jackie and I sat down to talk about joining our bank accounts, we flipped a coin to decide whose bank we would stick with. I lost, so we merged all of our money into Jackie’s bank. Of course, in hindsight I can see how silly this is.