
Title : Get a Life: You Don't Need a Million to Retire Well (Get a Life: You Don't Need a Million to Retire Well)
Author : Ralph E. 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.

Title : You've Earned It, Don't Lose It: Mistakes You Can't Afford to Make When You Retire
Author : Suze Orman
Rating : 1 Stars out of 5.
Summary : The math is wrong
The time value of money analysis in this book does not take into account that money has time value and thus the results of the studies Orman presents are biased in the wrong direction. Also the rate of inflation of 5% is too high based on current and past values. This also biases the results. It is funny to see the results of her long term care insurance policy analysis. According to Orman, the insured pays in $1,255 each year for 30 years and alternately if they had not taked the policy get no credit for the compound growth rate this money would earn had not they taken the policy. It makes a huge different that was not considered Also there is a chart that shows a comparison of 5% simple and compound interest on an inflation rider. Certainly, inflation is not a simple interest growth rate. The data of Orman's table make no sense whatsoever and certainly have no bearing on the long term care policy decision.

Title : Get a Life: You Don't Need a Million to Retire Well
Author : Ralph Warner
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : This is the best retirement planning book I've ever read!
This is the first retirement planning book I've ever read that realistically addresses how much money you really need to save for the lifestyle you want. I now realize that I don't need to save millions, that my current saving plan is perfectly adequate for the lifestyle I want. I can relax, enjoy my life and family, and work on retaining my health.

Title : How to Retire Rich
Author : James O'Shaughnessy
Rating : 2 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Started good, but then...
I don't know how to take this book. On the positive side, it offers seemingly reasonable investment strategies for inexperienced investors. At worst, the strategies are thought provoking. At best, they may be providing strategies that will make alot of people retire rich. On the negative side, I am skeptical of the author's intentions of writing this book. He sells mutual funds that implement the strategies (which is not necessarily a bad thing), but the funds have yearly fees of 1.5% each! That is very high for a passive fund. Why so high? All of a sudden, I want to stop reading. Finally, the book didn't teach me 250+ pages of info. It may be good for the new investor, but for one like me that has read a few books (but not done alot yet), it didn't offer alot of new insight. (I just can't get that 1.5% out of my head...)

Title : Real Life Investing Guide: How to Buy Whatever You Want, Save for Retirement and Take the Vacation of Your Dreams While You're Still Young
Author : Kenan Pollack
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : A personal library must! Says a Cincinnati Investor.
There is absolutely no better tool in the market today. It's a great handbook for those sophisticated Generation X'ers, and an even a better tool for that worldly, younger new generation who are blazing trails right behind the X'ers.
Hey Boomers, your children, the N'Gens, are going to take the world by storm. With your ideas and their cohesive, cooperative energetic spirit, there isn't anything that they won't accomplish.... But without the financial skills so wonderfully illustrated in this book, your child will be left behind the pack. He or She will fail to live up to their unbelievable potential.
As an owner of this book, I can honestly attest to its value. I think it should be part of every high school senior's core curriculum! It is the only book that can make sure your child is ready to assist his/her peers in shaping the future of America and the World.
If your school board has not yet adopted this text, then please makes sure before your son or daughter goes off to college this fall that they have this guidebook to the world of life. America and for that matter the World will be grateful.
A Financial Analyst and Real Estate Investor (Cincinnati, Ohio)

Title : Roth to Riches: The Ordinary to Roth Ira Handbook
Author : John D. Bledsoe
Rating : 2 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Some crucial points are no longer valid due to new regs.
This would have been a very excellent book had publication been withheld until after the Taxpayers' Relief Act of 1998 had been signed into law. Mr. Bledsoe was aware there were going to be important changes and he provideded a form in the back of the book, that the reader can use to send for an update on the the new regulations. Unfortunately the turn arround time for the update is quite slow. As the book reads in its present form, some very important areas are no longer accurate and an unwary reader could be lured into making a mistake in choosing a Roth IRA.