Retirement Resources
Preparing for retirement is a big part of most people’s financial plans. The vision offered by the financial services industry has traditionally looked like this: work hard and sacrifice, save all you can, and then at some arbitrary age you can escape your job and live a life of leisure.
We have a different perspective on the concept of retirement and have found several books that articulate these ideas very well.
Retirement Books
The New Retire Mentality
Author: Mitch Anthony
Did you know that the original Social Security retirement age of 65 was set back in 1935 - when the average life expectancy was 63? Converting that standard to modern terms, we’d have a retirement age of 86! The creators of Social Security certainly did not intend for retirees to draw benefits 25 years or more. Since then, a lot of myths have clouded the concept of retirement. In this book the author challenges the mainstream image of retirement as artificial, unrealistic, and unsatisfying.
Anthony writes:
“The deeper I searched, the more evident it became to me that the traditional notions of retirement have evolved into something more. When people today talk of retiring, they are rarely speaking of retired living; they are usually speaking of emancipated living. They want to be free to pursue their goals, at their pace, and free to find a sense of balance in their lives…The New Retirementality recognizes how outdated and irrelevant the industrial age model of retirement has become in a day where ideas are the chief commodity of trade. This mind-set recognizes the need for balance and the futility of trying to reserve work for one stage and leisure for the next.”
Recommended Reading
The Four Pillars of Investing
William Bernstein
This is one of the most well-written books on the fundamental concepts of investing. While we do not entirely agree with all of Bernstein’s opinions related to modern portfolio theory, this book is still an excellent resource for becoming a more educated investor.