AARP - Personal Finance in Your 50s All-in-One For Dummies

Personal Finance in Your 50s All-in-One For Dummies

Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com

Copyright 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Certain materials excerpted from:

Getting the Job You Want After 50 For Dummies, Copyright 2015 by AARP

Personal Finance After 50 For Dummies, 2nd Edition, Copyright 2015 by Eric Tyson and Bob Carlson

Selling Your House For Dummies, Copyright 2018 by Eric Tyson, Ray Brown, and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2018937027

ISBN: 978-1-119-47151-6 (pbk); ISBN: 978-1-119-47153-0 (ebk); ISBN: 978-1-119-47146-2 (ebk)

Welcome to Personal Finance in Your 50s All-in-One For Dummies!

So, youve hit your 50s, your job is fulfilling and lucrative, your kids got full-ride scholarships to college, your mortgage is paid off or close to it, you invested early and wisely, your early retirement is on track, and you have an updated, signed will and a plan for your estate that will ensure that exactly what you want to happen to your stuff when you die will in fact happen. Nicely done! Go and be well. You can put this book down now.

What? Youre still reading? Hmmm. That must mean you hit a snag or two along the way to personal financial nirvana. Well, dont worry. Youre hardly alone. By picking up this book, youve already shown you want to get yourself on a better track, and youve taken your first step toward doing so. This book is all about understanding and improving your financial health from late middle age heading into retirement.

Its never too late to right the ship! Theres a whole lot you can do even in your 50s to help yourself have a more comfortable life as you head into your more advanced years, and this book is chock full of juicy advice on that stuff.

You hold in your hands a big ol conglomeration of some of the best For Dummies material on the topic of bettering your economic picture in your later working years. Its divided into six sections, each of which is itself a miniature book that focuses on one aspect of personal finance. Check out the Contents at a Glance to see how the book is organized.

You can peruse this book in the way most books have been perused since time immemorial from cover to cover, starting on Page 1. Or you can use it as a reference guide, looking up specific topics in the Index or Table of Contents.

To make reading and understanding personal finance topics a bit easier, this book uses some conventions to help you along the way:

• Italics: Newly defined terms are set in italics.
• Acronyms: Acronyms are spelled out on first use.
• Websites: Youll find references to websites that may provide additional information or make some task easier. Every effort has been made to make sure the links are functional at the time of publishing. If you ever see a website URL split from one line to the next, rest assured there are no extra hyphens, so type the address in your browser just as it appears. If youre reading the e-book, just tap the link to go to that website.

Heres what this book assumes about you:

• Youre middle-aged. Youre no spring chicken. You did not just fall off the turnip truck. Youve been, as it were, around the block. As such, you probably know very well what a mortgage is, for example, but may not know what a reverse mortgage is exactly. You know there are these mysterious programs called Medicare and Social Security headed your way in a few years, but as for details, well you havent exactly studied up on them yet.
• You know you can do better with your money. Youre busy work and family duties have had you running around for years. You have a vague sense that youre not as well off as you should be, and you know there must be things youre not doing that you should be doing, and vice versa. Youve come to the right place.

Thats it! If those two descriptions apply to you, youre ready to read on for hundreds of ideas and expert advice on whipping your finances into shape.

This book uses the following icons to point out certain insights:

This one indicates short summaries of subject matter youve just read about and also points out important things to keep in mind for later. If you hesitate for a moment when reading the core content, check for one of these to keep progressing smoothly.