An important step for Baby Boomers who are planning their retirement years is to learn how long they might live, then to let the financial and lifestyle implications sink in.

Many people hear from the media that the average American lives to their late 70s, but that’s the wrong number for Boomers to focus on. That’s the average life expectancy at birth, which factors in everybody who dies in childhood and early adulthood. But people who are currently in their 50s and 60s are in a more select group of people who’ve been healthy enough—or lucky enough—to have made it that far.