Before you make retirement decisions, make sure you understand the lingo

Do you speak Retirement? Every field, whether it's sports or information technology, has its own lexicon. The language of Retirement has been around for years, mostly spoken by academics or people in financial services. But now that millions of boomers are starting to confront decisions about their future, the jargon of retirement and financial planning seems to be surfacing all around us, in everything from the Social Security statement we receive annually to TV commercials hawking financial products.

Understanding these terms can be crucial to your future. In the worst case, making a financial decision based on misunderstanding some of the jargon could detract from both your retirement income and the lifestyle you've dreamed about.

A competent financial adviser will explain retirement planning terms to a client. But if you don't have a financial adviser, or if your eyes glaze over after encountering three or four of these unfamiliar, technical-sounding terms, take the time to look them up. (You can find explanations, as well as definitions, of most of them by surfing the Internet.) Or find another adviser who will make sure you understand not just the dictionary meaning, but also the implications of some of these important retirement terms.

Different Scenarios

Here are some examples. Currently, my favorite retirement-related word is "decumulation." Don't let this one stump you. Simply the opposite of "accumulation," it has been in economic textbooks for a while but is