Until recently, I never thought about when I wanted to retire or how much my retirement years will cost me. I just assumed that 10% of my income plus my employer's matching contribution, compounded over time, would do the trick.

Then I stumbled upon Boulevard R's website a few weeks ago. Boulevard R is developing a tool to help young people think about retirement planning in new ways.

After spending a few minutes on Boulevard R's site, I quickly realized that I had been thinking about retirement all wrong...or rather that I had not been thinking about it at all.

The site got started when its founders, Matt Iverson and his dad Jon Iverson, realized there weren't any comprehensive retirement-planning tools available to investors with less than $500,000 in assets.

Boulevard R breaks the planning process into four areas: Vision, Goals, Strategies and Plan. This process takes less than ten minutes, the interface is friendly and the site doesn't require any sensitive personal information.

Users start by defining their vision of retirement by clicking on images that represent different ways they might spend their time once they stop working, like traveling and family. Later they choose from a slew of pictures that represent financial goals, like paying off student debt and buying a home. Users supplement their collage of pictures with basic personal information like age, location, number of children, savings, debt and their current asset allocation.

The tool uses this information to calculate whether users are on track to meet their basic retirement needs and visions. It then offers savings strategies and shows how they can affect users' financial futures. Finally, it promises to provide a customized retirement plan. Unfortunately, the site is still in beta and the planning part is not yet available to the public.

Boulevard R is still tinkering with the calculator to get it just right. The tool provided some kooky results when I first used it a few weeks ago. Now it seems a bit smarter.

Its assessment of my own situation made sense to me — and left me a bit uneasy. According to the site, I need to change my current spending habits if I want to eat when I am older than 87.

"Our results are more conservative, or not as rosy, as other tools out there because we take other factors into consideration, like buying a car and a house" during your working years, Matt says.

But Matt and his team realize that terms like "retirement," "old age" and "life savings" tend to scare young people. So they try to deliver the bad news as nicely as possible.

"This is a huge social issue from a mental-health perspective as well," Matt says. "There is so much anxiety around the stock market and housing -- people are counting on homes as a significant part of their nest egg. We want to make a product that speaks to these issues, helps consumers remove anxiety around retirement and gives them some hope."

Boulevard R plans on expanding the planning portion of the site with an "Ask the Expert" feature, a community element and an investment tool in the next two to three months.

We like that Boulevard R aims to provide independent financial advice. Plus the company wants to do it for free. For now the Iversons plan to generate revenue from advertising and possibly from referrals to financial advisers.

-- Kristen Sullivan