Paradise Lost: Retirees Scramble to Recover

Heavy losses in retirees IRAs and 401ks have translated into losses for communities.

(AP Graphics/Getty Images)

Retirement Experts Say Cut Back

"They can't control the market, they can't control the economy, but what they can control is their consumption, their expenses," said Joy Kenefick of Wachovia Securities. "If they worry about their own expenses, [they can] look inside and decide what kind of radical changes they can make that would dramatically improve their situation" by reducing their expenses.

For now, Giorgio Cave has pared his expenses to the bone.

"I literally spend no money on anything but housing, health insurance and food now," he said. "It really does feel like a very constrained, limited existence. I can't travel. I can't go out. I can't eat out the way I used to eat out."

But retirement experts said that the nation needs a more fundamental fix for the longer term. The financial meltdown has highlighted the fundamental flaw of a retirement system that relies solely on Social Security and 401ks.

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"401k plans are too exposed to the market to be the only source of retirement income in addition to Social Security," said Alicia Munnell, executive director of the Center for Retirement Research. "We need an extra tier that is protected from these fluctuations."

Munnell said that something more like a traditional pension -- with a fixed payout -- rather than an investment account that moves up and down with the stock market would offer retirees more security.

In the meantime, the Obama administration is considering making enrollment of workers in retirement savings plans mandatory, along with investing guidelines that could protect older workers from stock market downturns.

For Jan Moran and Paul Rollins, it's back to the drawing board. They say they must "reinvent" their lives to avoid outliving their savings.

"We vacillate between being traumatized by it and invigorated by it," Rollins said. "This opens up some possibilities that we have to reinvent ourselves."