When it comes to retirement, there is a whole segment of society that wants to just stick their head in the sand and not worry about it until about 5 years before they plan to retire. Unfortunately, by then it's too late. Personally, I've been planning for my retirement since I was 26. But then that is definitely not typical, as the Washington Post points out.

Brenda Ellis's day begins at 6:30 a.m., when she rousts her 11-year-old son, Imani, from bed, hustles him into the kitchen for breakfast and to the school bus by 7. Tianna, 13, and Dikia, 17, quickly follow. Then she's off, some days to a substitute-teaching job in Prince George's County, others to tax clinics for the working poor, where she is earning credit for a hoped-for career in accounting.

If it's a school night for her, Ellis, 41, rushes home to her Landover apartment to quickly fix dinner before bolting out at 5:45 p.m. for the half-hour drive to Strayer University and an accounting class that ends at 9...

Somewhere in this busy life stews roughly $13,000 in retirement savings from her 14 years at the U.S. Postal Service, in accounts that she doesn't really understand or monitor.

Um... didn't they just say she wants to be an accountant? Perhaps she should try to understand those accounts and monitor them more closely. What's really tragic is that she's halfway through a civil service career, and only has a paltry $13k stashed away for retirement.

"I don't know what's going on with it," she said one night at a tax clinic in Southeast D.C. "I just know I have these three accounts, so I just say, 'Let's hope and pray. Let's hope and pray it's not going into Enron. Let's hope and pray it's not going into Tyco.' It's just hard to absorb all I'm supposed to absorb."

Hello! And she wants to be an accountant! Worse yet, the Post says that when it comes to the idea of private accounts for Social Security, people like Ellis "say they would just as soon not have another thing to worry about." Does this sound like someone you would hire as your accountant?

While I don't understand how people could not care about their financial situation, I don't really have a problem with people who don't want to plan for their retirement. What I do have a problem with is people who don't plan for their retirement (or insurance, or home ownership, etc) and then expect taxpayers to pick up the tab for them. If you don't want to save for retirement fine, but don't come crying to me when you're living on the street or working until the day you die.

Another thing I noticed is that they mentioned her having a 17, 13, and 11-year old. What I didn't hear mentioned was a father.