Work often stops unexpectedly. You'd better be prepared with a financial plan.

Paulette Geller thought she had her retirement all figured out. Geller, 64, planned to work until 66 or 67 to boost her Social Security check. Then, after successful foot surgery last year, she was in the hospital being wheeled to her car to go home when she had a stroke.

The stroke caused Geller to lose some technical skills and vision, keeping her from continuing to work as program director for older adults at the Winter Park (Fla.) Health Foundation. "I honestly thought I wasn't going to ever stop working. I was going to cut back to half time or quarter time because I loved my job," Geller says. Suddenly, "I couldn't do my job anymore, but it wasn't on my timeline and I wasn't in control." Now Geller gets disability payments that amount to 60 percent of her former salary and pays for COBRA health insurance coverage.

The vast majority of baby boomers want or plan to work in some capacity as long as they can. Eighty-four percent of people between the ages of 51 and 70 expect to work after they formally retire, and nearly two thirds say they can't see themselves ever retiring completely, according to a survey by management consulting firm McKinsey Global Institute. The McKinsey analysis also indicated that 60 percent of boomers will need to work in order to maintain something like their current lifestyle.

But retirement is something that can happen while you're making other plans. "It's far more commonplace for retirement to come earlier than expected than for it to happen according to some plan," says Marc Freedman, founder and CEO of the think tank Civic Ventures and author of Encore: Finding Work That

NEW YORK (AP) -- American Express Co. has ended another round of litigation with a rival card company, but still faces serious headwinds from its customers.

After announcing Wednesday that it will be getting $1.8 billion from MasterCard Inc. in settlement of an antitrust suit, the credit card lender -- known for catering to jet-setters and the well-heeled -- revealed that it has again underestimated how quickly its cardholders are falling behind on their debt.

"Business conditions continue to weaken in the U.S. and so far this month we have seen credit indicators deteriorate beyond our expectations," said AmEx Chief Executive Kenneth Chenault in a statement.

The rocky consumer climate comes amid a tough legal period for credit card companies, which are battling among themselves and with federal authorities around the world over various rules and fees. Wednesday's settlement was seen by industry experts as positive for both companies -- mainly because the $1.8 billion figure was close to expectations, and because the two companies can now put the litigation behind them.

MasterCard shares rose $9.42, or 3.4 percent, to $289.79 Wednesday. American Express had accused the Purchase, N.Y.-based credit and debit card processor of conspiring to discourage some banks from issuing its credit cards.

MasterCard said it agreed to make 12 quarterly payments of $150 million to American Express, and plans