Yes You Can Still Retire Comfortably

This is a survival manual for the difficult but exciting road to retirement security.

Many people feel unprepared for retirement. Some don't feel like they have enough money saved and are fearful of having to work for the rest of their lives. Others are confused about how to negotiate through the retirement maze of decisions that need to be made. Where do I invest my money? Should I go to a financial advisor? What do I do about Medicare? Where should I live? Will I need a part time job? The good news is "Yes you can retire". The author outlines some simple dos and don'ts that will guide you in the process. He offers helpful suggestions for those who are behind on their savings yet still hope to retire. A retired minister, the author writes unashamedly from a Christian perspective and quotes passages from the Bible throughout. He writes not as a financial expert or as a person of wealth but as someone who has never made a lot of money (a little guy) yet when it came to retire he found himself sitting pretty. He believes that you can do the same thing by following his easy to understand steps for retiring successfully.

Life is not lived all at once - it's lived in moments, days, months, years, and decades. This means that the financial plans and actions we all have to take to meet our responsibilities sensibly must be organized by years and decades. Ben Stein wrote the original guide to this subject almost a quarter century ago. Now, Ben, along with Phil DeMuth, the eminent financial planner and writer, have gotten together to update the book, incorporating the massive changes that have occurred in the economy in the past 25 years. This book tells you what and when to save, how much to save, what to save it in, when to spend, and when to say no to your present and yes to your future. Yes, You Can Get A Financial Life! is a time-traveling guidebook on how to organize the money side of your life for all of the decades of your life.

Most investors spend their time worrying about selecting individual stocks and mutual funds: big mistake! Modern Portfolio Theory—developed in 1952 by economics Nobel Prize winner Harry Markowitz—shows that it’s more important to focus on how our securities interact as a whole. Astonishingly, most investors—including many professionals—still run their investment accounts the same way people did back when "How Much Is That Doggie In the Window" played on the Hit Parade. It’s time to apply what we’ve learned in financial economics over the past 50 years to bring your portfolio into the rock-’n-roll era.Armed with a computer, you, the investor, can use sophisticated tools to analyze your holdings—tools that would have been the envy of the biggest money managers only a decade ago. First among these is the Monte Carlo simulator: the better mousetrap that investors have been waiting for.With their trademark wit, Ben Stein and Phil DeMuth show you how your current portfolio is radically underdiversified, costing you money. They offer step-by-step instructions to supercharge it across a variety of investment situations to get you the best risk-adjusted returns.

With the bursting of the stock market bubble, and after 13 rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, yields on CDs and money market funds tread at historic lows - a negative return after inflation. Gone are the days when investors could earn 5 percent interest, risk-free. With smaller savings coupled with lower returns on what savings remain, retirees and others living on fixed-income investments watch in horror as their income checks shrink with each passing month. However, there are investments that still earn a significant rate of return - and do so reliably and consistently. These fixed-income securities include bonds, real estate investment trusts, preferred stock, emerging market debt, and annuities, among others. They earn the kind of returns that baby boomers and the retirement community need in the same way they need to draw breath, yet hardly anyone knows anything about them. As 70 million Americans reach retirement age in the next 15 years, fixed-income investing will become a sociologically inevitable mega trend. Yes, You Can Be a Successful Income Investor! shows you how you can safely secure the highest possible yield from your savings, even in a treacherous investment environment.

Nearly 2 million Americans reach retirement age each year. Before anyone can begin to enjoy all the leisure time ahead, there are difficult decisions to be made about a host of crucial issues, such as Social Security, HMOs, insurance, and estate planning. Written by award-winning Washington Post financial reporter and syndicated columnist, Stan Hinden, How to Retire Happy arms anyone approaching retirement with easy-to-comprehend answers to all their complicated questions. How to Retire Happy: • Provides practical advice and guidance on the 12 most complicated decisions to make before retiring • Covers all the bases, from where to live to how to invest, from health insurance to taking money out of IRAs • Goes beyond financial planning to offer practical advice on the key emotional and psychological issues surrounding retirement

Completely expanded and updated, Live it Up Without Outliving Your Money! Second Edition is the financial roadmap that people are looking for. Based on the author's experience in the financial services sector since the mid-1960s, including more than 30 years as an investment advisor and money manager, this plain-talking book gives readers simple strategies to add between $1,000 and $10,000 to their monthly income in retirement, and without taking any of the dumb risks of the past. This reliable resource motivates readers to take the first steps to change their financial situation; presents multiple strategies for withdrawing money during retirement; and exposes the marketing tricks perpetrated by financial institutions. This book also includes added focus on newer issues such as ETFs, REITs, estate planning, IRA withdrawals, and updated allocation strategies. Live it Up Without Outliving Your Money! : • Allows readers to tailor a financial plan for retirement that takes into account the amount of risk they’re willing to tolerate • Provides multiple strategies for withdrawing money once in retirement while also building an estate for children and other survivors • Exposes the marketing tricks and emotional ploys perpetrated by financial institutions and the personal finance media that keep investors from making the best decisions – and provide real-world examples of these deceptions • Motivates readers to take the first steps to change their financial situation, which is the most difficult part of the strategy • Includes a dozen worksheets to help readers grapple with retirement planning

What Would You Rather be Doing Right Now? How to Retire Happier in not about saving for retirement. It's about how you can enjoy the best life possible after you retire, regardless of your financial resources. The #1 retirement destroyer is not the lack of money, it's boredom. If you believe that after a lifetime of work and sacrifice to meet all of your responsibilities, you deserve to live an exciting, healthy and adventurous retirement, then How to Retire Happier is for you. Learn why you may want to live and travel overseas, all for less than it cost to live in the US. Yes, you can explore enchanting Europe and exotic tropical islands and live a life most people only dream about, on social security alone. You may never have seriously considered it, but how does spending cold winters on a warm sunny beach, and then escaping hot summers staying in the cool comfortable mountains sound? Add in nightly campfires with lots of friends under star filled skies, and you may decide one of the many RV retirement lifestyles may be just perfect for you. Discover why you may want to own more than one home, and how you may be able to afford a lifestyle you thought was only available to the wealthy. You'll never have to live where the weather doesn't suit you again. Tired of cold winters but love where you live? Want to stay near the kids and grand-kids? Learn the advantages, freedom and flexibility of different snowbirding lifestyles. Learn how to winter where it's warm and sunny for far less than a typical tourist would pay, while staying in a home apartment or condo. Is moving for retirement right for you? It may well be, but there are risks. Learn the pros and cons of moving for retirement for full-time living and the best states to retire in today. See what your chances are of being happy with your relocation to any of the fifty states, before you spend the time money and hassle to move there. Learn to use actual quality of life data and resident satisfaction polling to discover the true best place to retire for you. Would retiring-in-place offer you the best opportunity to enjoy retirement? If so, learn how you can make it more affordable and enjoyable. In fact, if you aren't retired yet, you may learn that there is a way your can retire earlier than you thought. Learn how to guarantee your transition from a life of work, to one of leisure, will be a huge improvement in your health and enjoyment of life. You may not want to put retiring off another day, if you're still working. Do you want to retire but you're not sure you can't afford it? Most of the retirement lifestyles covered in How to Retire Happier can be enjoyed on Social Security alone. If you do require more cash, learn how to earn income and generate tax write-offs to make your retirement dreams come true, working when and where you want. Can you really make money while enjoying the shade of a palm tree by the beach in the winter? Discover what people who live the longest healthiest lives in the world, have in common. Read about the latest studies and discoveries that can help you live a longer healthier life. After all, once you discover your ultimate retirement lifestyle, you'll want to enjoy it as long as humanly possible. What Would You Rather be Doing Right Now?

A practical action guide for financial independence and early retirement from the popular Our Next Life blogger. In today's work culture, we're expected to hustle around the clock. But what if you could escape the traditional path and get on one that doesn't require working full-time until age 65? What if you could wake up every day without an alarm clock and do the things you love most? Tanja Hester and her husband Mark left their crazed careerist lifestyle to live their dream life in Lake Tahoe, retiring early from high-stress careers. Now Tanja will help you map out a customized plan for freedom and make it easy to succeed, whether you're good at math and budgeting -- or not! Work Optional is more than just a financial plan: it's a plan for your whole life -- designed by you, not by an employer or clients. Tanja walks you through envisioning your dream life, accounting for variables such as health care and children, protecting yourself from recessions and future unknowns, and achieving a purpose-filled early retirement, semi-retirement, or career intermission with completely doable, non-penny-pinching steps. You can live a happier, more meaningful life, free from the daily grind. Regardless of where you are in your career, Work Optionalwill get you there.

As senior citizens age, they tend to go through less money; in fact, the typical over-75 household spent only $25,763 in 2004. This is in direct contrast to financial planners who tell you that you need to save large amounts of money in order to live comfortably during your retirement years. In this new book, you will learn how to manage your expenses, how to reduce and eliminate debt, how to save and invest wisely, how to use retirement planning tools, how to reduce living expenses, how to downsize to a smaller, less expensive property, how to save on small items, how to prioritize your insurance, and how to cut back. Additionally, you will learn about withdrawal plans, selling your home, simplifying your life style, and streamlining postretirement activities. Perhaps most interestingly, you will be presented with the option of moving overseas when you retire. Places such as Costa Rica, Panama, Belize, Malta, and Mexico offer lower living costs and lower prescription drug prices. - Publisher.