Power of Planning

Geneen Roth and her husband Matt were ripped off by Bernie Madoff -- victims of his now-notorious Ponzi scheme. Her first reactions when she found out were panic, terror, self-blame and rage. But her struggle to deal with the financial catastrophe led her to see another side of life.

Recently, 90,000 former Ford workers got an interesting offer: They could trade monthly pension benefits for a lump sum of cash. Are such offers a good deal? That depends quite a lot on who you are.

Financial frenzies come in many flavors, most triggered by big life changes, fraught with emotion and unfamiliar challenges. But if you let those events lead you to make spur-of-the-moment money decisions, you'll often face even bigger problems down the road.

Here's a Mother's Day downer: On average, women have nearly $41,000 less socked away for retirement than men -- but they're likely to need more. But these three things can help get you on track, no matter what your income is.

Occasionally, I play a grim game I call "Grab and Run" -- a mental exercise in which I plan which items I would take with me were I to flee an impending disaster. If a fire, flood, killer bee swarm or alien invasion happened right now, how prepared would you be?

Chad Parks is on a six-week cross-country road trip to shoot a documentary about Americans' soured retirement dreams. And if there are any solutions to the looming crisis, he hopes his crew and their vintage VW Vanagon will find them.

The sandwich generation kept its retired parents and jobless adult children afloat through the down years. Now, a new study makes clear how much their retirement plans have paid the price.