Want to execute the perfect retirement plan? Live the perfect life. In this existence, you would never lose your job, and recessions would never happen.

In my case, I wouldn't be getting a divorce -- and splitting the retirement savings, pensions and home equity my husband and I acquired over a three-decades-plus marriage. Now, those savings look frighteningly skimpy divided by two.

According to a 2012 survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, 60 percent of respondents age 55 and up had less than $100,000 in retirement savings. I imagine we'll all walk into a bank someday and stick up the teller for eight times our final salaries -- the amount we should have saved, according to the latest formula from Fidelity.

Or we'll work forever (so we think). The reality is that nearly 60 percent of people who are now 65 are already retired, according to MetLife, and at least half of those people left the workforce because of a job loss or health problem. So let's focus on the doable. For me, the first step was to see how much more I could carve out for my retirement savings. Because my children are now adults, I'm neither saving for college nor paying for it. And because I'm over 50, I can contribute not just the $17,500 annual maximum (for 2013) to my 401(k) but also $5,500 in catch-up contributions. With an IRA, I can kick in $5,500 annually plus up to $1,000 as the catch-up amount.

Assuming I'm able, I'm also planning to work past my retirement age. Each year I work past my 66th birthday -- and delay filing for Social Security -- will boost my benefits by 8 percent. Working longer will also give my investments more time to grow.

Once I do leave my full-time job, I'd like to continue doing what I love -- writing -- and make a little money at it, postponing Social Security until I'm 70, when I'll get the maximum benefit. "People think of retirement as a point at which everything changes," says John Ameriks, a principal at the Vanguard Group, "but as they get closer, it becomes less all-or-nothing. They find it's more a slope than a precipice."

I'm also counting on "the MacGyver strategy," based on the '80s TV action hero. "MacGyver would find all these household trinkets and put them together to get out of sticky situations," says Joe Wilson, a wealth-management adviser with TIAA-CREF in Atlanta. I'm sure I can put together gadgets like crazy, given the right instructions. It might even be kind of fun.

(Jane Bennett Clark is a senior editor at Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine. Send your questions and comments to moneypower@kiplinger.com. Kiplinger's has a new service to pinpoint the ideal time to claim Social Security to maximize benefits. Visit http://kiplinger.socialsecuritysolutions.com.)