No one can guarantee you a healthy and prosperous retirement. Life is just too unpredictable. But you can increase your odds of enjoying your twilight years in comfort by pursuing a regimen of common-sense steps. Here are six top ones:

DECIDE CAREFULLY ON HEALTHCARE

By Julie Appleby
USA Today

You can do at least three things to help secure your health in retirement: Take care of yourself now to reduce the chance of illness later; save as much as you can; and review your insurance options.

Caring for yourself boils down to some basic wisdom: Exercise, eat right and don't smoke. Those steps can help ward off such costly problems as heart disease, diabetes and cancer. Your savings will come from limiting your hospitalizations and prescription drugs as you age.

But even those with the best fitness plans can fall ill. And healthcare costs for retirees can be staggering. Fidelity Investments estimates that even with Medicare, an average 65-year-old couple must save more than $200,000 to cover 20 years of costs. That doesn't include over-the-counter drugs or long-term care.

Once you're eligible for Medicare — currently at age 65 — you must decide whether to join traditional Medicare or an alternative Medicare Advantage plan. If you stay with traditional Medicare, keep in mind: On top of the premiums, you'll have to shell out for co-pays and deductibles for doctor visits, hospital care and other services. Retirees must also decide whether to take on the new Medicare drug benefit; it has a separate premium.

Medicare generally doesn't cover most nursing home expenses, which can exceed $50,000 a year. If you retire before you're eligible for Medicare, see if you can stay on a company plan or if you qualify for an individual plan. If not, experts suggest delaying retirement.

"No one should go without health insurance," says Gail Shearer of Consumers Union.

DEVELOP A PLAN FOR TAPPING ASSETS

By Kathy Chu

USA Today

A general rule is to withdraw your taxable money before your tax-deferred accounts. The tax-advantaged money can continue to grow, free of taxes, thereby boosting your retirement assets.

There are, however, exceptions. If you own appreciated stock in a brokerage account, you might want to withdraw it last, rather than first. That way, if you never sell the stock, it will pass to your heirs once you die. And they'd have to pay tax only on the stock's gains after they'd received it.

Also, if you think income tax rates will rise in the future, you might consider tapping tax-deferred retirement accounts before brokerage assets, says Dallas Salisbury, chief executive of the Employee Benefit Research Institute.

True, you'd sacrifice tax-deferred growth. But you'd pay lower income tax on the retirement money than if you took it out after income tax rates had risen.

Or suppose you're working in retirement and are temporarily in a high tax bracket. In that case, consider withdrawing assets from a Roth IRA before you take assets out of a 401(k) account. No matter when you pull money from a Roth, your withdrawals will be tax-free. You already paid tax on the contributions, and the government waives taxes on the earnings. By contrast, money taken from a 401(k) would be subject to tax.

Social Security should also be factored into your withdrawal strategy. You can choose to take Social Security as early as age 62. But if you can wait, your monthly payouts will increase for every year that you waited, until age 70.

BEWARE OF SCAMS THAT TARGET SENIORS

By Kathy Chu

USA Today

It takes decades to build up your retirement assets. But it takes only one scam to rob you of them.

As the first of 79 million baby boomers prepare to retire, regulators report a rise in fraudsters pitching questionable — and sometimes nonexistent — services.

"The people selling investment products know that there are a lot of people quitting their jobs and retiring," says David Massey, deputy securities administrator in North Carolina.

One way for fraudsters to find potential victims is through free-lunch and free-dinner seminars. They offer you a meal, then try to sell you an investment product.

A yearlong investigation of hundreds of these seminars in states with large populations of seniors by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and state securities regulators found that 100 percent of them led to sales presentations — even though some had been advertised as "educational" sessions at which no products would be pitched.

Regulators also found that "exaggerated" or "misleading" advertising claims were made at half the seminars. Example: "Immediately add $100,000 to your net worth."

Walk away from any get-rich-quick or guaranteed-return sales pitches. And always check the credentials of a financial salesperson — with the SEC, FINRA and state securities and insurance regulators — before making any investment.

Find more information about industry credentials, and what advisers must do to earn them, at FINRA's Web site: www.finra.org.

AVOID TAKING ON TOO MUCH DEBT

By Sandra Block

USA Today

Americans are retiring with more debt than ever before. Among households 65 and older, the average load of credit card debt more than doubled from 1992 to 2004, to $4,907, according to Demos, a New York think tank.

The proportion of retirees with mortgage debt is also rising. Nearly one-third of families headed by people 65 to 74 had mortgages on their primary residences in 2004, up from 26 percent in 1998, according to the Federal Reserve.

If you accrue debt while you're working, you can always put in extra hours or take a second job. But once you retire, your options shrink. For most retirees, car loans, credit card bills and other payments mean less money for healthcare and other essentials.

Suppose you're retiring with $100,000 in savings and $10,000 in credit card debt with a 15 percent interest rate. You plan to withdraw 5 percent a year from your savings, which will provide $5,000 to supplement Social Security and other sources of income. But unless you pay off your credit card debt, your interest will come to $1,500 a year. That means you'll end up using 30 percent of your annual withdrawal to pay interest on "something you consumed long ago," says Dan Houston of Principal Financial.

WORKING LONGER CAN PAY DIVIDENDS

By Sandra Block

USA Today

If you retire at 55, you could live 30 or 40 more years. And unless you're very wealthy, your savings might not last as long.

Even retiring at 62 — when most people become eligible for Social Security — is risky, says Jack VanDerhei of the Employee Benefit Research Institute. Employer-provided health coverage for retirees is increasingly rare. And without it, you'll have to pay for your own insurance until you're 65, when you become eligible for Medicare.

In most cases, you can buy COBRA group coverage from your former employer for up to 18 months — if you pay the premiums, plus administrative costs. But if you're not yet 65 at the end of that period, you'll have to buy an individual insurance policy or go without. Many retirees are shocked at how much such policies cost. If you have health problems, you might not be able to buy health insurance at any price.

Though Americans are working longer, most of them aren't working long enough to provide for a secure retirement, VanDerhei says. By the time they realize they haven't saved enough, he says, it's often too late: "It's really difficult to get into the workforce at age 70."

His advice: Project an estimate of how much money you'll need to live on. Retirement calculators on the Internet can help, though most workers fail to take advantage of them.

MORE THAN EVER, INVEST PRUDENTLY

By John Waggoner

USA Today

Once you're retired, you probably won't have fresh income to make up for investment losses, so you have to be especially prudent. Which means don't chase red-hot stocks and don't try to earn a living as a day trader.

But don't be too cautious, either. In addition to income-producing investments, such as bonds, you need stocks, too. In the long term, stocks tend to outperform bonds or bank CDs. And retirement could last longer than you imagine.

"If you make it to 65, you have a great chance of making it to 85," says Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist for Standard & Poor's.

Within your stock holdings, be sure you're diversified. "Don't ignore international stocks," Stovall says. If you do, you could miss some rich opportunities. The U.S. stock market represents just 35 percent of the world's stock value, he says.

Stovall's advice: