Birken - Choose your retirement find the right path to your new adventure

Avon, Massachusetts

As ever, this one is for you, Dad. I miss you.

Whether you speak fluent NASDAQ or think an annuity is the French word for birthday, you have likely spent time beating yourself up for not adhering to the right path to retirement. After all, you know what you are supposed to do to have a secure retirement:

• Start saving for retirement in your twenties.
• Save enough to get your employers matching contribution to your 401(k) each year.
• Maximize your contribution to your 401(k) or IRA each year.
• Be on track to replace 80 percent of your income in retirement.
• Save enough so you will have at least $1 million to retire on.
• Plan on minimizing your tax burden in retirement.

There are very few individuals who have followed every single one of these right steps to retirement. Even people who work in finance dont necessarily follow this path. (Full disclosure: I did not start saving for retirement until I was several years into my career, and I have only maximized my contribution to my retirement accounts about half the time since then.)

A lot of our fears about slipping off the retirement path come from the kind of financial advisers who delight in coulda shoulda woulda advice. If you listen to these experts, you might conclude that unless you can find a way to change past financial decisions, retirement is going to be out of your reach. For instance, you might hear a financial guru say:

You didnt start saving until you were in your forties or fifties or later? Too bad! You should have started earlier to take advantage of compound interest.

or:

You took money from your 401(k) and paid steep penalties? Too bad! You can never get back that lost wealth.

or even:

You havent made saving for retirement a priority until now? Too bad! Youll have to work forever since you didnt plan.

Despite the gloom-and-doom mindset of these experts, their idea that there is only one true path to retirement is dead wrong. In fact, each individual must find his or her own path to a secure and fulfilling retirement. That means you dont have to be perfect to construct a secure retirement for yourself. You can create a retirement path that fits your specific circumstances, rather than try to make your circumstances fit the right path.

And thats what this book is for. It will help you to determine what course you need to take to reach your retirement goals.

Reaching retirement is a highly individual process. Yes, there are some things that every worker needs to do: save money, plan ahead, prioritize goals. But depending on what you do for a living, how much money you make, how much you have already saved, what you want to do post-retirement, how much you plan to rely on entitlement programs, and what financial issues you struggle with, your retirement path will look different from anyone elses.

This book is broken into three parts that will teach you how to shape your retirement patheverything from determining the obstacles that are keeping you from maximizing your retirement savings, to examining the common retirement myths that might be holding you back, to showing you the path to ten different retirement scenarios.

This portion of the book will help you to identify obstacles that are keeping you from saving and planning for the retirement of your dreams. In , we will explore your money psychology and scripts, examine the mental and systemic hurdles in your path, determine your investment personality, and help you establish what is most important for your retirement experience.

The second portion of the book will help you to understand which common facts about retirement are nothing but myths. In will show you what you can reasonably expect from Social Security and Medicare in retirement. This section will allow you to base your plans for retirement on facts rather than conventional wisdom.

The final section of this book will show you the various paths to take in order to reach ten different types of retirement. will walk you through the specific steps you will to take in order to achieve the retirement you want.

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At that point, you can skip to the chapter or chapters in that most interest you. Each of those chapters has the specific information you will need in order to make your retirement goal a reality.

Retirement planning can be overwhelming and confusing. Theres no need to add to the stress by plodding through information that has nothing to do with your particular situation and plan. This book will help you cut through the noise and focus on the specific things you need to do to reach your retirement.

Lets begin the retirement adventure.

Before you decide what specific path youd like to take in your retirement, we need to go over some basic concepts. If youve read other retirement books, including my The 5 Years Before You Retire (shameless plug!), you may be familiar with some of this material. However, it never hurts to go over it again.