The Small Print This chart makes a series of assumptions. We assume you want to live out your days in New York City and that by the time you stop working, you’ll own your own home in full. We’re also assuming that you’re taking this chart with a shaker of salt. The point system is not a price guide—and this chart is not a spreadsheet. And if you really want to figure out how much it all costs, you’ll need to make an appointment with an accountant and (if you want anything like the life you already live) arrive at his office armed with a shoe box stuffed with a full year’s worth of receipts and bank statements. Just bite the bullet and do it. Seriously, you should.

C. Still don’t have enough? Downsize! And choose again.
Save your knees by moving from your fifth-floor walk-up to a one-bedroom co-op (with elevator) in the Trump Village retirement community in Brighton Beach (and add $450,000 to your cash reserve).

Sell off the split-level in New Jersey and move into your kids’ place on Staten Island (add $540,000).

Give up your four-story townhouse in Harlem and relocate to a condo in Jackson Heights (add $1 million).

Sell your classic six on the Upper West Side and buy a one-bedroom in Murray Hill (add $2 million).

Trade in the loft in Tribeca for a two-bedroom condo on the Williamsburg waterfront (add $2.5 million).

Give up the Brooklyn Heights brownstone and settle full-time in the house in Sag Harbor (add $3.5 million).

Realize your hips no longer warrant the ski-in-ski-out cabin in Aspen, so you limit yourself to the penthouse on Park Avenue and the cottage in Bridgehampton (add $5 million).

Lee Eisenberg is the former editor of Esquire and author of The Number: A Completely Different Way to Think About the Rest of Your Life, to be published in January by the Free Press.

See Also:
Quiz: What's Your Number?

Real-Life Retirement Plans (And How Much They Might Cost)