The following is a guest post from Free Money Finance. Take a look at this fantastic plan. You should have a similar plan that you are working on.

I am not going to settle for a barely-getting-by retirement. I haven’t worked all my life to sit and just make ends meet for my golden years — simply surviving until I die.

I am not going to settle for a retirement where my money may or may not run out when (and if) I’m 85, 90, or 95. That would feel like living with impending doom and a lifestyle I would hate.

No, the traditional retirement isn’t for me.

What is the “traditional” retirement you may ask? Something like this:

• You work a 40+ year career, saving for retirement as you go along.
• When you get to 65 (or older), you retire and live on a combination of Social Security and your savings.
• If you’ve done it “right”, the savings portion allows you to withdraw 4% (the old rule) of your savings every year with a fairly high confidence that your money will last longer than you will (something like a 95% chance your money will last until 85.)

And this is the retirement plan for those Americans who are pretty advanced in their saving and retirement plans. Most Americans simply have “work longer” as their plan.

Anyway, the above plan is at least decent. That is until something happens:

• What if you live past 85?
• What happens if some large, unexpected expense comes along?
• What if inflation rears its head and your money only lasts until you are 75?

No, this sort of “a lot of things could go wrong” retirement isn’t for me. Instead, here’s what I’m planning on:

Accumulating a substantial amount of assets that I can then turn into income generators, churning out enough income that more than covers my annual expenses.

The benefits of this plan are probably clear, but let me spell them out just in case they aren’t: 

• I can retire and completely support my lifestyle on income generated from my assets.
• The assets themselves are never touched. I live only on the income they provide.
• There’s a safety net each year (between earnings and spending) in case something bad happens.
• Any Social Security money added to this is gravy.
• Any income from a job I may have is gravy.
• Any income from a job my wife may have is gravy.
• Any income from a side business we may have is gravy.

In other words, this plan will give us more than enough income generated to cover our needs plus a good margin of safety.

Yes, this is the sort of retirement I want to have.

But there are a few challenges to this plan:

• I need to save a significant amount of money.
• I need to use that savings to generate a significant income.
• I have to account for inflation.

I’m currently between phase 1 and phase 2. Here’s what I’m doing to hit my goals:

• I’m working to make the most of my career.
• I am also developing side income.
• As you all probably know, I spend significantly less than I earn.
• I’m taking the savings and investing it, mostly in index funds.

Those are all phase tasks. I have started the “turn savings into income” phase as well with my real estate investing and so far, it’s going well.

I’ll keep you posted as things progress.