ill and Julie Smith, now looking down the barrels of 60, never thought they would be millionaires.

But right now their IRA account is within shouting distance of those magic seven digits. Will that do it? Do they have enough to retire?

Like many corporate executives in their 50s, Bill was downsized out of his job at Bell Atlantic. He then started a handyman business, having had enough of the corporate wars. He rolled over his company 401 (k) money into an IRA and put it into mutual funds. Riding the bull market, the portfolio has done very well.

But we all know a million bucks isn't what it used to be. Bill and Julie are old enough to remember "The Millionaire," a popular TV series from the 50s. At the start of each weekly episode, a character named Mr. Anthony, a flunky for an eccentric multi-millionaire named John Bairsford Tipton, gave some unsuspecting soul a check for $1 million, no strings attached. That sum was then enough for most people to fulfill their wildest dreams and banish their money worries forever.

Bill and Julie want the $1 million to do only one thing: finance their retirement. If they retire at age 60, with $1 million in the kitty, would that be enough?

It's a very close call.

Of course, how far a million dollars goes depends on how much you need to live on each year and how long you will live. Experts say you need somewhere between 75 percent to 80 percent of your pre-retirement income to maintain your standard of living. You can live on less because you'll spend less if you are retired.

The biggest savings: Social Security payroll taxes, work-related expenses and mortgage payments (if your house is paid for). In addition, with reduced income you might find yourself in a lower tax bracket. Weighing in on the other side, you'll face increased expenses for health care and travel and leisure activities.

Bill and Julie used our Life Expectancy Calculator. Here are their results after running the numbers:

Grossing $82,500 a year from a $1 million portfolio certainly doesn't seem too hard these days, especially since Bill and Julie aren't worried about preserving any of that money for their heirs.

But inflation could be a killer.

Let's say inflation averages 4 percent and see what it does to Bill and Julie's dream. They will need an income of $104,400 a year in just six years, just to stay even. Another five years and they'll need $127,000 annually. After 25 years of retirement they'll need a whopping $278,300 per year to maintain their standard of living.

Bill doesn't like the idea of taking risks with his retirement portfolio. But he knows that a bulletproof, conservative investment strategy like government bonds won't work.

Even if his portfolio outpaces inflation by 2 percent each year, Bill and Julie will either run out of money by age 80, or they will have to live on less each year.

However, if Bill and Julie are willing to accept more risk, achieving, say 4.5 percent above the inflation rate, they will make it to age 88 before exhausting their million-dollar nest egg. (Try our Retirement Income Calculator and see how much your nest egg will produce.)

Retirees' biggest fear is going broke. Bill and Julie worry about it a lot. They both have parents who lived well into their 80s. Continued good health and future medical breakthroughs could have them living into there 90s. A few years ago, a major insurance company got a lot of mileage out of the slogan: "The only thing worse than dying is outliving your income." That scary slogan has sold a lot of annuities.

An annuity is at least worth considering. You give your money to an insurance company, and it gives you money back each month until you die. The rate of return could be fixed or variable.

What will a million-dollar annuity get you each month? Fidelity Investments sells a variable annuity that uses a 5 percent standard assumed earnings rate. Based on Bill and Julie's joint life expectancy of 28 years at age 60, the Fidelity variable annuity would start them off at $5,103 per month, or $61,236 per year. As long as they earn 9 percent or more on their investments, their income would go up at least as much as the inflation rate.

But note: Bill and Julie have to make the investment choices. They pick them from a menu of mutual fund-like portfolios. There are pros and cons to annuities and the annual fees aren't cheap. But they can still make sense for some folks.

Bill and Julie figure that if they were to go the annuity route, they would probably have to wait until age 62 when Social Security payments kick in. They estimate that their Social Security payments, even the reduced payments at age 62, would be around $20,000 a year. Together with a variable annuity, they would be very close to their goal of $82,500 (today's dollars). In addition, they would have two sources of income that would likely go up with inflation.

One caution: While payments for life are guaranteed in a variable annuity, steady income is not. Just ask retirees who invested with variable annuities during the stock market downturn and high inflation of the mid-70s. It took them nearly a decade to recover their losses. Economists like to say that "in the long run" the stock market will outperform other investments and beat inflation. But as retirees always say, "In the long run, we'll all be dead."

Bill and Julie are just about to make the final payments on their house in New Jersey, which is worth about $200,000. In addition, they own a vacation condo in North Carolina, worth about $95,000. With Julie's new love of golf, a move to North Carolina is not totally out of the question. They've been thinking that if their assets can't generate enough to meet their income needs, they could always sell the New Jersey house. They've also looked into reverse annuity mortgages.

This is how reverse mortgages work: You hand over the title to your house in exchange for guaranteed payments for a specified period or for your lifetime. This vehicle was created in part for people who needed the income but who did not want to move. It was a way for them to benefit from at least a portion of the equity in their home.

Since Bill and Julie have another place to live, the reverse mortgage isn't very attractive to them. Julie's attitude: "With the new tax law exempting up to $500,000 in capital gains from the sale of our home, we would rather sell the house and use the assets from the sale to supplement our income."

If your income needs are in the ballpark of Bill and Julie's, $1 million is enough to live on if you meet all the following criteria:

So are Bill and Julie quitting work at 60?

Probably not.

Bill is enjoying his handyman business so much that he's not sure he wants to retire yet. One perk: free coffee and desserts from all of the widows who seem to always have something "broken" around the house.

Meanwhile, Bill and Julie are continuing to feather their nest egg. But they know they can chuck it all any time they want. And they both feel, well, like a million bucks.