I can especially see this arrangement being of interest to women. With 30 percent widowed in the 65-74 age bracket, they'll be living a long time without a spouse. Instead of moving into a group situation where you might or might not like the other members, you could choose your friends and people who have the same kinds of value systems and interests.

The baby boomers are going to be leaving the workplace soon, and they are going to take all their knowledge with them. If you ignore that, you're going to make the problem worse than it has to be.

I think that's a mistake. We need to realize that training will keep these people in the work force doing work we need done.

You're tying your money together. Here's where I'd definitely want everything spelled out, including what's going to happen if someone in the group develops a chronic illness. Also, people tend to underestimate how long they might live: Say you live to be 100. Will you be able to support this style of living that long?

It's a little like the chicken and the egg. Companies seem to acknowledge the problem, but everyone is standing around waiting for someone else to find a solution. It's a little frustrating because that means we may have a crisis before most companies do anything about it.