Americans Clueless About Life Expectancy, Bungling Retirement Planning

Cindy Levering, a retired consulting actuary, was chatting with her dental hygienist recently about how being conscientious (i.e. flossing your teeth daily) adds to your life expectancy. So does being married, exercising, eating right, driving safely, and keeping stress levels down.  Her point: there are a lot of variables (lifestyle and genetics) that go into how long any one might live, and published mortality tables are just a starting place to figuring it out.