
Title : Get a Life: You Don't Need a Million to Retire Well
Author : Ralph Warner
Rating : 4 Stars out of 5.
Summary : A common sense approach to planning for retirement.
This book should be required reading for people in their 30's and 40's. It emphasizes keeping active, having a wide variety of interests, and developing friends of all ages. It's a good antidote to all those financial planners who try to make you feel guilty about not having "X" millions of dollars invested so they can make commissions off your money. A good gift for middle age yuppies.
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Title : Mrs. Ted Bliss
Author : Stanley Elkin
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : A Miami widow's quirky odyssey of the heart.
Mrs. Ted Bliss is a widowed woman in a polyester pant suit living her last years in a Miami Beach condominium. When a local drug kingpin buys her dead husband's car, it triggers a remarkable chain of events that brings Mrs. Bliss face-to-face with the premises of her life as a dutiful wife. The authenticity that Elkin brings to Mrs. Bliss' inner dialogue and his characters' speech was so humorous and touching that I frequently had to collar somebody so I could read them the passages out loud. If you like to find the extraordinary in "ordinary" lives, if you have an ear for language, please give yourself and treat and pick up this book.

Title : You Can Retire: While You're Still Young Enough to Enjoy It
Author : Les Abromovitz
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Entertaining,easy to read - I'm ready to start my plan now!
I never thought anyone could write about how to retire early in an entertaining way. Along with great financial planning advice, the book is filled with anecdotes that make you realize that early retirement is feasible without sacrificing your current lifestyle. I enjoyed the "Seinfeld" and "Dilbert" references that made the advice easier to understand and digest. If you don't want to get up at 6:00 a.m. every morning until you're 65 or older, this is the book to read."

Title : Life Begins at Fifty: A Handbook for Creative Retirement Planning
Author : Leonard J. Hansen
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : This book has much valuable information about growing older
I found this book to be very well written and full of valuable information about enjoying life well into one's mature years. I will soon be fifty and now I am thinking about how nice it will be as opposed to dreading growing old. This is a source of inspiration for me. This book helps one to understand the value of growing older and reinforces the idea that growing older is a great opportunity. This book has much to offer those in middle age as well as those in late adulthood. I would especially recommend this book to those in the baby boom generation as they approach fifty.

Title : The New Golden Door to Retirement and Living in Costa Rica: A Guide to Inexpensive Living, Making Money and Finding Love in a Peaceful Tropical Paradise
Author : Christopher Howard
Rating : 3 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Great Book!
Hi, I am working at ILISA Language Institute in Costa Rica, San Jose and I just want to say that this book helps our student a lot by giving them helpful tips or by arrange their own travel in Costa Rica. Thanks!

Title : Rich Dad's Prophecy
Author : Sharon L. Lechter
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Employed or Self Employed? - Financial Future SHOCKER!
This book has made me sit up and think! I'm shocked!
Millions of people depend on their plans for retirement income.
Yet, when programmes first became popular over two decades ago, Robert Kyosaki's rich dad WARNED that these plans would cause one of the BIGGEST stock market crashes in history... a crash that would financially destroy the unprepared. Now rich dad's prophecy is coming true.
* How the fears, dreams, and actions of millions of 'baby boomers' will control the economic future...
I understood from the book that although we had the NASDAQ exchange record its biggest ever one-day fall, back in April, 2000, - the worst is still yet to come!
Read it NOW, or you'll regret it!

Title : Rich Dad's Prophecy
Author : Sharon L. Lechter
Rating : 4 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Beware 2016! -- Good Financial Education for New Investors
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Before commenting on the book's message and argument, let me discuss its communications style. There is a great on-going debate about whether the details that Mr. Kiyosaki presents about himself and his "Rich" and his "Poor" (and biological) Dad are literally true. I don't know, and I don't intend to try to find out. For my purposes, I treat the communications style of this book as a fable to help teach a lesson. I do evaluate the accuracy of the lesson itself in these comments.
If you've read some of the Rich Dad, Poor Dad books before, the main new information in this book is an explanation of why stock market investing with pension money is a dangerous way to grow your "wealth." In addition to being at risk from con men, thieves, incompetents, brokerage houses and market volatility, you face the ticking time bomb of a growing number of U. S. investors being legally required to liquidate their holdings beginning at age 70 1/2. As the Baby Boom generation turns 70 1/2 beginning in 2016, the selling moves from being a trickle into being a torrent that overwhelms new funds into the market at some point . . . followed by an inevitable collapse in stock values. If you want a more detailed, confirming discussion of this issue, the book, What If Boomers Can't Retire?, is a good choice. Harry S. Dent, Jr.'s demographic books also look at this issue.
If you already believe in the messages of the earlier books, you could skip this one . . . especially if you have already decided to avoid or minimize stock-market investments.
If you have read none of the Rich Dad, Poor Dad series, I suggest that you start with Rich Dad, Poor Dad before tackling this one. You'll understand this book better if you do.
The other problem with traditional defined contribution pension investing (usually by 401-k plans), of course, is that a pension fund contribution takes lots of cash out of your pocket (unless the employer matching is very generous -- way more than 2:1) to put some money into the retirement account. So you face the possibility of being much poorer in cash flow while you save for retirement investing and poorer when you cash out of the investment after you pay the taxes on what you take back in what could be smaller values. Imagine if you had had to start withdrawing from your pension fund in 1929. That's one nice illustration that I enjoyed in the book. Possibly, the same could occur after 2016. Who knows?
The second half of the book advises you on how to build a financial ark against hard times by relying on building cash-generating businesses and investments (such as rental properties) after you achieve your financial education (which you didn't learn in school, even if you got a business degree from most schools). You are encouraged to start small and develop various kinds of control over your emotions, advisors and actions. It's all sound advice. My only complaint is that people who are going to start making real estate investments and building cash-generating businesses need a lot more information than is here. I graded the book down one star, accordingly.
The first half of the book could have been shortened up quite a bit, but for those who are unaware of the demographic time bomb's potential effect on their investments, it may help to get the story in small doses.
The surprise for a lot of people in this book is going to be that what they hear every day from best-selling "authorities" about the "right rules" of retirement investing could easily turn out to be wrong for them.
After you absorb and begin to apply these lessons, I suggest that you think about where in your life the conventional wisdom led you down the wrong path. Where else could that be happening to you now?