Welcome to the second edition of the Retirement Rebootcast! This is a special limited-edition podcast series focused on my new book – Retirement Reboot: Commonsense Financial Strategies for Getting Back on Track. On this podcast series, I invited some of my favorite experts on retirement to join me on the program to talk about some of its key ideas.
The book’s official publication date is today – January 10th!
I wrote Retirement Reboot with a very particular group of readers in mind: people getting close to retirement who are not financially prepared. In other words, people who have not been able to save much -or anything – for retirement. They’re headed toward a retirement living only on Social Security, which typically replaces about 40% of their working income. Meanwhile, the rule of thumb is that most of us will need to replace at least 70% of our wage income when we retire.
The book offers a series of strategies for improving on that math. The key chapters discuss the importance of making a plan, timing your retirement and how to get the most from Social Security and Medicare. I also discuss strategies for building savings, even late in the game, and tapping home equity. From there, I go on to discuss managing your career late in the game, the value of professional advice, how to manage long-term care risk and how to approach the idea of aging in place.
On this second episode, let’s talk about the importance of making a plan for retirement. It’s something far too many people don’t take the time to do – and that’s a real misstep. If you don’t have a plan, it’s impossible to know whether you are on track to meet your goals. A plan is not a crystal ball, but it provides a context, and a set of tools for decision-making. And it’s very important to approach the plan holistically – it’s about much more than saving and investing.
For this episode, I invited two experts to join me to help illustrate two important points from Retirement Reboot that I want to get across about planning. Steve Chen is the founder of New Retirement, an innovative low-cost online service that has developed a terrific set of planning tools. Steve’s company illustrates how planning isn’t just for the wealthy anymore. I also invited Steve Vernon to join me. Steve is an actuary, and a retirement educator and author. He’s a leader in developing holistic approaches to planning – he’s joining us here to explain why too many people confuse investing and planning, and why a holistic focus is essential.