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homen irelandretirementIt would be great if we could all retire with a nice portfolio of savings and pension income, without having to worry about paying the bills most retired people pay.
A portion of the author's income from the book will go towards low-income workers and their families affected by September 11, 2001, and to charities serving the hungry and homeless, such as Greater New York Labor-Religion Coalition, Second Harvest (USA), Catholic Relief Services (outside the U.S.), and Habitat for Humanity International. When I first learned about Retire Sooner, Retire Richer, I was skeptical that it could add anything to my knowledge of investments, tax law, estate planning and how to get practical advice. As a result of reading the book, I was pleasantly surprised to learn a great deal of valuable information that I did not know before. After having assessed that information, it made me realize that anyone who works for a company, wants to retire early and desires to leave an estate behind needs a great deal of help. I strongly encourage anyone who is within 10 years of retirement to read this book! The book opens with one of the best explanations I have ever seen about why volatility in financial instruments means that you have to be very conservative in planning your retirement investments and even more conservative in withdrawing from your retirement savings. Otherwise, you don't save enough and a down market can cause you to wipe out your savings at a time when stock prices are low. This really hit home after seeing the stock market drop for three straight years until 2003. The suggested guidelines in both areas made a lot of sense to me. Next, Mr. Netti described many ways that you can choose to reduce the current and future taxes to be paid on your income and savings. Most of these choices are only available to you well before you retire. So if you wait until the day before retirement, you will lose many valuable tax reductions. In addition, if you die before your planned retirement date, failure to use these choices will cost your heirs quite a lot! From reading the text, I began to appreciate that the tax laws governing pension payouts and IRAs have gotten to be very complex. Only someone who follows these details on a daily basis and works with them all of the time can hope to appreciate and take advantage of all the nuances if you want to retire early. From this, I began to see (for the first time) why the advice from a well-schooled financial advisor can pay a vast multiple of the cost of such an advisor. Mr. Netti certainly seems to be such an advisor. He goes on to give you a process to locate the right financial advisor for you. The process seems like a good one, although I have never personally looked for a financial advisor. Reading Retire Sooner, Retire Richer will also prepare you to get more benefit from working with an advisor. If you are totally averse to ever working with a financial advisor, this book may change your mind. Reading the book struck me as being a lot like what you might discuss with a financial advisor. I was grateful for the chance to have this dry run on the experience. Here's the outline of the book: Part One: Understanding Your Retirement Investments Chapter 1: The Numbers Game and Retirement Timing Part Two: Building the Wealth You Need Chapter 5: Portfolio Lessons for a Lifetime Part Three: Managing Your Nest Egg Chapter 10: The Advisor Advantage As I finished the book, I found myself thinking about where else in my life I might benefit from skilled advice . . . and have not been seeking it.
I found this book to be vastly superior to 52 Weeks to Financial Fitness by Marshall Loeb, which was also written for people in this age category. Mr. Schwab's profits as author from this book are all being donated to the Charles Schwab Corporation Foundation to provide for the needs of seniors. The book is divided into two parts: First, planning for the rest of your life; and second, getting organized to implement that plan. The planning section is very well done because it covers materials at a level of perspective that goes from the needs of most beginners to handling the needs of all but the most sophisticated people. Fundamentals are covered in sidebars so as not to clutter-up the main text for those who do not need the information. The subjects covered include how much money you will need in total, determining the value of what you have available, estimating the gap between your needs and resources, understanding how to think about asset allocation in your investment funds, establishing the proper cash flow to match your needs, and readjusting your investment mix over time. Each section is clearly written and provides formats to make it easier for you to assemble and think about your information. I was particularly pleased to see Mr. Schwab challenge some conventional wisdom about financial planning. Many people use a rule of thumb that you will need 70% of your preretirement income. In practice, many people find that they spend more than that because some costs go up more rapidly than inflation, like medical care, or they take on new interests. Mr. Schwab suggests 90%. I think even that may not be conservative enough. I think a better assumption is to have the percentage grow over time, slowly. Eventually, it will probably exceed 100%. In addition, many people will tell you to plan on spending 6% of your assets each year after you have to start drawing on them. Mr. Schwab wisely suggests that 3-4% will be more appropriate for most people. I liked that advice very much. The advice on investing is much more conservative than you would expect from someone who heads an on-line brokerage house. But appropriately so. He suggests you stay in common stocks as long as possible, because you may well live much longer than you think. But he has all but 10% of your portfolio in either no-load index funds or conservative bond and cash positions. If you skip the idea of owning any individual stocks, the advice is quite appropriate for the average person. It also has you reducing your exposure to stocks over time, as the years appraoch when you will need the income. So even if stocks stop performing well (as some warn) in the next few years, you will be relatively safe. Part II of the book gets you into deciding whether you need a financial advisor or not, and how to select and work with one. It also looks at the most important questions about insurance, estate planning (get thee to a lawyer), and how to handle your donations so they bring you the most satisfaction and least after-tax cost. The book has several other nice qualities. It emphasizes the rest of your life as being the "second half" rather than the downhill slide or some other negative concept. In sports, we all know that the winners are usually those who play the second half the best. Also, at half-time, the coach often makes adjustments that lead to winning performance. It is a very nice metaphor for financial planning at this stage in life. "What do I want for the second half of my life?" is the key question posed in the beginning of the book for you to consider. I also liked the optimism of the book. Rather than focusing on the fear that people have about outliving their money, the book emphasizes the potential for good things to happen. You may live longer, and think of all the good things that could follow. "Anything is possible" was my favorite line from the book, which followed examples of wonderful accomplishments by seniors of advanced years. Unless you already have been through this exercise recently with a financial advisor, I suggest that you get the book and use the exercises. Further, I suggest you take even more time to think through the possibilities that the post child-rearing and tuition years may offer you. It's almost like getting to start over again, but with much more in the way of resources and wisdom. Look for and find the best choices!
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