Vaz-Oxlade - Never too late: take control of your retirement and your life

Alex, my baby girl, I love you two bits!
Malcolm, sweetheart, you make my life joyful.
To the best kids a mom could ever ask for.
Thanks for helping me become.

W e live our lives like chapters of a book. Theres the kid chapter, the teenage chapter, and eventually the Im-in-charge chapter. You might have a parenting chapter. You might have a buying-a-home chapter. You most certainly will have a retirement chapter. Now imagine that when you finally turn the pages of that chapter, you see exactly what you want. Youve written the scene yourself, and there arent any surprises. And, best of all, as youre living through all of those other chapters of your life, youre not in the least bit worried about what that last chapter will bring. You know. That last chapter will be one of contentment.

Once upon a time, nobody worried about retirement. You got to 40 or 45 and you died. No problem there. But then life got easier, health care got better, and people started living longer. A lot longer. And a new industry was born: the retirement-planning industry.

Im not a fan of the retirement-planning industry. While I believe that people do have to plan for when theyre no longer working, Ive found that the retirement-planning industry has chosen to use fear as its two-by-four, and Im not impressed. Theyve created beautiful pictures that people have turned into expectations. And theyve used a lot of bafflegab to dazzle us with numbers and make us do things we then scratch our heads at.

What they havent done is told us HOW. How to save. How to know well have enough. How to feel like were on the right track.

So when my editor, Kate, at HarperCollins, called me up to say that she thought my next book should be on retirement planning, my first response was What the hell?

She laughed. Kate is very tolerant of my potty-mouth and instant BIG responses.

And what will make this book different from all of the other books on retirement planning? I asked after expressing disbelief with a number of colourful expressions. After all, Id just done a blog rant on the stupidity with which most Spurtsmy word for spouting expertsapproach retirement planning.

Youll tell the truth, said Kate.

Hmm. What a concept. A book that tells the truth.

So here I have for you a book about retirement that makes no false promises. There are no hyped-up projections. You wont feel like a loser. And this isnt about Making the Magic Million. Nope. This book is about making sure that when you get to the agewhatever age that may bewhere youre no longer slogging it out for money, that youre where YOU want to be. Its about taking control of your future so that when you finally get there youre not surprised at what it looks like. And its about making sure you know the truth and deal from a place of fact, not fear.

Ill warn you now that not everything Im going to say will immediately sit well with you. Most people hate the idea of giving anything up in the present for some potential benefit in the future. And there are no special tricks or strategies in this book. Most of this is plain ol common sense.

There are some very technical areas. This is one of the things that makes most people duck and hide when it comes to planning for the future. But the technical stuff doesnt have to bore you senseless. Its not like you have to memorize it and then take a test. You just have to be aware of it, and know where to find it when you need it, so you can be sure of making an informed decision.

If youve been avoiding the whole issue of planning for your future, and you think your current approach might not really be the best way to have a happy life down the road, then this book is for you. Theres no bull, no blather. And you might actually learn a thing or two. You will definitely come away knowing that you are in charge of your retirement and your future. You will know that YOU have the power to make it whatever you decide you want it to be. And youll know that its never too late to take control.

Take it slowly. You dont have to finish this sucker in one sit-down. And if your eyes start to glaze over in parts, take a break and come back. Ill still be here.

Your money and your future are too important to ignore. And if you havent found a good mechanic to guide you through the ins and outs yetand it would appear most people have notthen you may have to start figuring out how to tune up your money yourself. (And I have some suggestions about finding a money mechanic.)

Most importantly, stop doing nothing. Choosing to stand with your hands in your pockets, whistling a jaunty tune as you cast your eyes around in the hope that no one notices what a dope youre being, is no way to get to where you want to be. For that you have to take action. And for that you need a plan. Thats what this book will give you. Concrete steps forward.

And to do that you need to be ready to do this:

How worried are you about retirement? Over the years Ive received hundreds and hundreds of letters from people who are at or approaching retirement feeling less than optimistic.

Part of our worry stems from the unrealistic expectationsThe Magic Millionestablished by The Spurts. It seems that doing something isnt enough. Weve been told over and over that we have to do the most, regardless of what we have to give up in the rest of our lives so we can accumulate the wads of money some advisor says well need.

You cant frickin win. No matter what you do, by some arbitrary standard, it wont be enough. And so were left feeling like a bunch of losers. Is it any wonder that so many people throw up their arms and go on vacation?

All the debate about how much you should save is moot in light of the reality that you just arent saving. Raising the bar so high that people just stare up at it seems counterproductive to me. Besides, life is expensive. Saving cant be the thing you do to such an extreme that you have no fun while youre getting to the next place in your life. If youve made some past mistakes and need to clean those up, you had your fun and now you must pay for it. But if youre on the straight and narrow, do what you can to have some money for the futureits really importantbut have a life too.

Are you one of those people who plans to go into retirement with debt? Really? You couldnt get your consumer debt, your car loan, your mortgage paid off while you were working, so you think youll be able to do so when youre not? While having a small mortgage left isnt the end of the world, having a whopping line of credit or a couple or four credit cards can be the difference between a comfortable retirement and one full of dread.

Or are you one of those people who plan to come to a grinding halt on the work-front at some previously chosen date simply because they want to stop working. Early retirement is a huge dream for many people. And yet theyve done very little in the way of asset accumulation or income projection. Yall do realize that were living longer, right? At the beginning of 2008, the Stats Man reported that life expectancy had hit 80.4 years, with chicks eking out four years more than dudes. Of course, since you werent born in 2005, which is the birth year this report is based on, you may croak a little earlier (or later, depending on your familys history). The point Im trying to make here is that if you retire at 65, you still have 15-plus years to feed, clothe, and house yourself. If you retire earlier, you put even more of a strain on your savings. So you better do some income projections to see just how long the money will last.