AMES, Iowa--Scarlett O’Hara put off difficult decisions with, “I’ll think about that tomorrow.” The day of reckoning came for Scarlett and it fast approaches for 78 million baby boomers. The first wave of boomers will be 62 years old in 2008.

Several recent surveys indicate that retirement won’t be golden for at least half of baby boomers. Just like television’s Golden Girls, they will be unable to meet expenses if they stop working.

Boomers have been warned through headlines, sound bites and breakroom chats. In early 2007, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke urged Congress to take “early and meaningful action” to change Social Security and Medicare before the programs put the U.S. economy in peril.

Yet boomers put off planning, perhaps afraid they’ll make the wrong decision. Such procrastination only makes people fatter, unhappier and poorer, according to a study by University of Calgary professor Piers Steel published in January 2007, by the American Psychological Association.  

Boomers can choose wisely and get moving now with the help of one often-overlooked source of information, the Cooperative Extension Service.

“We want to empower boomers with some catch-up strategies to reduce debt and build their financial assets,” said Jane Schuchardt, national program leader for the Economic and Community Systems Unit of the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES). “Extension programs in personal finance are geared toward getting you moving; it’s better late than never.”

Extension has, in fact, a wealth of programs nationwide that could help move even chronic procrastinators or those who don’t know assets from liabilities.

Find online tools and links to extension programs across the nation at http://www.csrees.usda.gov/nea/economics/fsll/fsll.html. CSREES is an educational network of resources and expertise of nearly 3,000 local extension offices and 104 state universities.

At the site, visitors will discover Pick Up the Pace, a CSREES consumer guide to help baby boomers prepare financially for retirement. There are links to extension educators across the country.

By contacting a local extension office, clients can gain access to workplace seminars, workshops, demonstrations, community meetings, videos and self-help resources. People can find programs suited to their personal needs and learning styles through extension. A sampling includes:

Retirement Planning: Secure Your Dreams from Iowa State University, which uses basic workbooks as the basis for workshops. See www.extension.iastate.edu/finances/personal/retirement/retirement.htm

Take the Road to Financial Security in Later Life developed by the University of Minnesota,  Purdue University and the University of New Hampshire. It’s a curriculum available for download in PDF format. See http://fsos.che.umn.edu/projects/fsll.html

Financial Planning for Retirement Workbook was developed by Michigan State University and revised and updated by Utah State University and Purdue. See www.ces.purdue.edu/extmedia/CFS/CFS-685-W.pdf

Investing for Your Future is an 11-part home study course written by six land-grant universities (Rutgers, Cornell, Clemson, Virginia Tech, Michigan State and Idaho), CSREES and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The course is sponsored by Rutgers Cooperative Research and Extension, http://www.investing.rutgers.edu

Taking the Mystery out of Retirement Planning is a publication developed by the U.S. Department of Labor. See http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/publications/NRTOC.html.

Lack of planning has contributed to many elderly people living in poverty. Although Dorothy, Sophia, Rose and Blanche of the Golden Girls turned their short-on-funds situation into hilarious comedy, their plight also is the stuff of tragedy. Current decisions made by boomers will determine whether or not they repeat the scenario.

-30-