Retired At 48

There was a time when it was common to have a company pension to live on after you stopped working. These days, company pensions are rare and a large percentage of the workforce needs to rely on their own savings to fund their retirement years. How do you figure out how much you need to retire, and how many years that money will last? Do you dream of retiring early and wonder how you could make that happen? Retired at 48 documents one couple's quest to answer these questions and their path to achieving early retirement. It provides the steps they took to create budgets and track spending habits, the strategies they used to save and invest in order to grow their nest egg, the tools that helped them calculate how big that nest egg needed to be, and how many years it would last for. This book also describes considerations for reducing expenses after retirement and ways to structure investments to minimize tax burden, while creating a post-retirement income flow. This is not the typical financial planning or retirement advice book that describes theories and best practices. It is the practical, real-life recounting of the planning, thought processes and actions taken by an average couple, which resulted in the ultimate prize-a self-funded retirement at age 48.

"Dychtwald and Morison offer a brilliant and convincing perspective: an essential re-think of what 'aging' and 'retirement' mean today and an invitation to help mobilize the best in the tidal wave of Boomer Third Agers." —Daniel Goleman, PhD, Author, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ Throughout 99 percent of human history, life expectancy at birth was less than 18 years. Few people had a chance to age. Today, thanks to extraordinary medical, demographic, and economic shifts, most of us expect to live long lives. Consequently, the world is witnessing a powerful new version of retirement, driven by the power and needs of the Baby Boomer generation. Consumers over age 50 account for more than half of all spending and control more than 70% of our total net worth – yet are largely ignored by youth-focused marketers. How will work, family, and retirement be transformed to accommodate two billion people over the age of 60 worldwide? In the coming years, we'll see explosive business growth fueled by this unprecedented longevity revolution. What Retirees Want presents the culmination of 30 years of research by world-famous "Age Wave" expert Ken Dychtwald, Ph.D., and author and consultant Robert Morison. It explains how the aging of the Baby Boomers will forever change our lives, businesses, government programs, and the consumer marketplace. This exciting new stage of life, the "Third Age," poses daunting questions: What will "old" look like in the years ahead? With continued advances in longevity, all of the traditional life-stage markers and boundaries will need to be adjusted. What new products and services will boom as a result of this coming longevity revolution? What unconscious ageist marketing practices are hurting people – and business growth? Will the majority of elder boomers outlive their pensions and retirement savings and how can this financial disaster be prevented? What incredible new technologies of medicine, life extension, and human enhancement await us in the near future? What purposeful new roles can we create for elder boomers so that the aging nations of the Americas, Europe, and Asia capitalize on the upsides of aging? Which pioneering organizations and companies worldwide have created marketing strategies and programs that resonate with the quirky and demanding Boomer generation? In this entertaining, thought-provoking, and wide-ranging book, Dychtwald and Morison explain how individuals, businesses, non-profits, and governments can best prepare for a new era – where the needs and demands of the "Third Age" will set the lifestyle, health, social, marketplace, and political priorities of generations to come.

New edition into the 'Things to do... series', packed with inspiring and original ideas and fun-filled tips and thought-provoking quotations to encourage the reader to live life to the full. A great impulse purchase! Retirement is not the end of your working years but rather the start of something new. With more time on your hands than ever before, filling your days may seem harder than you expected and can leave you wondering 'exactly what do I do now?' This book provides a wide range of upbeat suggestions on ways to luxuriate in your new-found time. Whether it is learning a new language, taking up a new hobby or simply spending more time with friends and family, this book is packed with inspirational ideas. It aims to encourage readers to make the most of their retirement, to appreciate the extra time they have to spend pursuing activities they enjoy and exploring new ones. As well as a force for encouraging you to make the most of every opportunity, this book will make suggestions for how to come to terms with yourself, your friends and your family in this new phase of your life.

A brilliant and practical five year plan for all who dream of retiring while they're young and healthy enough to enjoy it. Provides clear advice on how to overcome the personal, financial and psychological obstacles.

"Retirement as Spiritual Pilgrimage: Stories, Scripture, and Practices for the Journey" offers a Christian perspective on the personal dimensions of preparing for and living life beyond full-time work. First-person accounts of retirees, reflections on relevant passages of Scripture, and suggested spiritual practices provide insight and guidance for each phase of this journey. Questions for reflection and discussion at the end of each chapter make this book suitable for use by both individuals and small groups (e.g., adult classes, small group studies.)

Increase your spending power, enhance your standard of living, and achieve financial independence with this “must-read” guide to money management (Jane Bryant Quinn). Laurence Kotlikoff, one of our nation’s premier personal finance experts and coauthor of the New York Times bestseller Get What’s Yours: The Secrets to Maxing Out Your Social Security, harnesses the power of economics and advanced computation to deliver a host of spellbinding but simple money magic tricks that will transform your financial future.Each trick shares a basic ingredient for financial savvy based on economic common sense, not Wall Street snake oil. Money Magic offers a clear path to a richer, happier, and safer financial life. Whether you’re making education, career, marriage, lifestyle, housing, investment, retirement, or Social Security decisions, Kotlikoff provides a clear framework for readers of all ages and income levels to learn tricks like: How to choose a career to maximize your lifetime earnings (hint: you may want to consider picking up a plunger instead of a stethoscope). How to buy a superior education on the cheap and graduate debt-free. Why it’s smarter to cash out your IRA to pay off your mortgage. Why delaying retirement for two years can reap dividends and how to lower your average lifetime tax bracket. Money Magic’s most powerful act is transforming your financial thinking, explaining not just what to do, but why to do it. Get ready to discover the economics approach to financial planning—the fruit of a century’s worth of research by thousands of cloistered economic wizards whose now-accessible collective findings turn conventional financial advice on its head. Kotlikoff uses his soft heart, hard nose, dry wit, and flashing wand to cast a powerful spell, leaving you eager to accomplish what you formerly dreaded: financial planning.

Consider the age-old question of how much you should save to enjoy a comfortable retirement: Are your knees knocking? Are you nervously biting your nails? In The Rule of 30 personal finance expert Frederick Vettese provides a surprising — and hopeful — answer. Through conversations between a young couple and their neighbor, a retired actuary, the couple and the reader discover: • How they would have fared had they been saving over various periods in the past, and how the future investment climate will differ • The problem with saving a constant percentage of pay • The Rule of 30 and why it is a more rational way to save • Whether investing in real estate is a viable alternative to investing in stocks The Rule of 30 changes the mindset from saving the same flat percentage of pay to saving when it is most convenient to your situation. In most cases, it means less saving early on while mortgage payments are high and children are costly, and more saving later. Saving for retirement is a high priority, but it is not the only priority in life. It is time to dispense with old myths like “just save 10% of your take-home pay.” The truth is we should save differently throughout our pre-retirement years — and The Rule of 30 is a road map for doing so.