Part four approaches retirement planning from another angle. If maximizing assets is one way of ensuring the retirement of one’s dreams, another way might be to simply adjust those dreams slightly. Brigham Young University professor and financial adviser Scott Marsh offers some tips about reducing one’s retirement needs.

One of the first suggestions many financial planners offer as a way to trim needs is a reduction in housing. Downsizing the home reduces the mortgage payment and may even eliminate it.

In part three, we discuss investment strategies during today’s economic downturn.

Imagine you’re in a large building with numerous elevators, says David Magee, president of Contango Capital Advisors, Inc. “One opens and you step in with the expectation that it will take you up. Though you may start in the desired direction, imagine that the elevator suddenly reverses course and takes you to the basement instead. For most people, this is exactly what has happened to them and their investments over the course of 2008.

In Part One of this series, Zions Bank Senior Vice President Paul Hansen offered an overview of some key considerations when planning for retirement. In Part Two, Hansen reviews IRAs, the building blocks of a retirement plan.

“After some Zions Bank clients expressed concerns about keeping IRAs open, I realized there was confusion out there,” Hansen says. “An IRA, or Individual Retirement Account, is a vehicle for saving. It’s not the investment itself. IRAs can be used to invest in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, Certificates of Deposit, money market accounts and other investment vehicles such as real estate. When investing in an IRA through a bank, clients can put their money in CDs and money market accounts covered by FDIC insurance for up to $250K.”

Even for those who enjoy working, thinking about retirement can be seductive. But understanding how to make the dream a reality can be daunting even at the best of times. And when the airwaves are full of sobering news about the economy, sometimes retirement starts to seem like an unattainable fantasy.

Paul Hansen, senior vice president of finance and profitability at Zions Bank, offers some practical advice about turning your retirement dream into reality.