Reality Check for 80% of Boomers

books:

	• Retire on Less Than You Think, Revised Edition: The New York Times Guide to Planning Your Financial Future Fred Brock Times Books, 2007 - 240 pages average customer review:based on 28 reviews view larger image
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Retirement 101

This is a great beginners book for people looking to begin there plans for retirement. It is very basic advice with the biggest angle it uses is if you own a large house in a metropolitin area then sell that house and by a small one in a place with a lower cost of living. A retiree could sell their large house in the state of New York and move to Okalahoma City and live like a king off the equity that was in it. The main point of this book is that you do not need 70% of your current income in retirement to be comfortable. You should be able to dramatically reduce your expenses when you no longer work, like eating out,clothing and gas. You should also have all your debt paid off like your cars, and even your house by retirement time. To learn about this in great detail buy this book, if this sounds like common sense move on.I think any book by Dave Ramsey is all that is ever needed on personal finance, he covers everything. From budgeting to retirement.

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Reality Check for 80% of Boomers

Before reading this book, my prediction of retirement for the Baby Boomers was based upon a few simple facts:

A. 20% of the Baby Boomers have 80% of the wealth. The 20% that have the wealth don't need to worry about retirement planning. As a side-line note, these 20% also have no need to sell their assets and therefore they will not crash the stock market.

B. The 80% of Baby Boomers that only have 20% of that generation's wealth will not have enough money to retire when and where they want to.

C. The financial planning rule-of-thumb that one needs 70-80% of pre-retirement income for income during retirement is not a bad rule-of-thumb.

Since 80% of the Baby Boomers will not accumulate enough money to retire when they want to (applying the 70-80% rule-of-thumb)......the only choices left to them are:

1. Work longer.
2. Reduce living expenses which can include selling your house and moving into a smaller house, move to a lower cost part of the U.S., or reduce your living standards.
3. Move to a lower cost country
4. Use a reverse mortgage for living expenses
5. Rely on family or charity

When I started to read this book, Brock immediately starts bashing the 70-80% rule-of-thumb as inaccurate and a Wall Street/Mutual Fund Industry conspiracy to get you to over-save for retirement. If you plan to stay in the same house when you retire (which 95% of current retirees choose to do), and you don't want to work until you die, and you don't want to dramatically reduce your living standards, then you will probably need 70-80% of pre-retirement income. If you can't meet the 70-80% rule-of-thumb.....the only choices left are one of the 5 options noted above.

Brock's book mostly focuses on Options #1, #2, and #4 above. Not many of us want to move to a foreign country in retirement. Relying on family or charity is not a popular option either.

If you already live in a smaller house in a lower cost part of the country and you did not save enough to meet the 70-80% rule-of-thumb, the only options open to you are to work longer, reduce your living standards, move to a lower cost country, use a reverse mortgage, or rely on friends or charity.

Brock puts way too little faith in the stock and bond markets compared to a government run Social Security program. One thing the government does do right is the TSA retirement plan for federal workers. Federal workers can choose among low cost index funds for their retirement portfolio. I'm not usually an advocate of government run programs, but in this case I think expanding the TSA program to cover the private sector is an outstanding idea. The low cost index fund approach keeps the high cost Wall Street and mutual fund industry wolves away from the private sector worker sheep.

I also disagree with Brock on how to fix the medical insurance plan in the U.S. My vote is to privatize it completely....including no tax breaks for companies who provide coverage to their workers. In my viewpoint, the auto insurance industry works relatively well in the U.S. (except for poor enforcement of uninsured motorist). Why can't the medical insurance industry work as well as the auto insurance industry? Until the individual deals directly with the insurer (versus multiple layers between the payer and the payee).....there is no real cost competition. The pre-existing condition situation needs to be resolved as well.

After reading hundreds of book, I'm concluding that "fear" does sell books. Painting the conventional rule-of-thumb of 70-80% of pre-retirement income as a big, dark conspiracy between Wall Street and the mutual fund industry is a good fear approach to selling books. In my opinion, there is no such conspiracy.

I guess this book has its place.......as a wake-up call.....or reality check..... to the 80% of Baby Boomers that have not saved enough to retire when and where they want to. The 80% of the Baby Boomers who only have 20% of the wealth are going to need more information about the 5 options I outlined above. Brock's book does contain some useful information on some of these options.

I would suggest companion books to supplement this book including:
The Richest Man in Babylon
Bogle on Mutual Funds: New Perspectives for the Intelligent Investor
The Millionaire Next Door
The Four Pillars of Investing: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio
A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing, Ninth Edition
Index Mutual Funds: How to Simplify Your Financial Life and Beat the Pro's
The Coffeehouse Investor: How to Build Wealth, Ignore Wall Street, and Get On With Your Life
The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing
Wealth: Grow It, Protect It, Spend It, and Share It
Are You Using the Right Rules to Plan Your Retirement?

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

The bestselling, hands-on retirement guide from Fred Brock, thoroughly updated and expanded for in-depth advice on housing assets, health-care options, and more With Retire on Less Than You Think, Fred Brock challenged the conventional wisdom on the real costs of retirement? and it struck a chord with Americans. Now, as mutual-fund investments continue to be a roller coaster, Brock updates his indispensable advice on finding asset streams, working during retirement, maximizing your health insurance, and choosing a community and housing to show how to
? manage the quicksand of the housing market (your best asset)
? pay for the spiraling costs of prescription drugs
? discover new cost-cutting savings
? plan for shifts over time in your financial goals

Boasting expanded resource lists and worksheets, Retire on Less Than You Think is the best guide available for making your retirement
dreams a reality.

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