As current as a 2011 issue of Smart Money magazine, yet deserving of a spot on the shelf alongside other treasured reference books, financial advisor Robert Margetic’s How To Survive the Coming Retirement Storm, describes in sobering detail the “retirement storm” that is already upon us. Major changes in taxation, health care, Social Security, inflationary risk and investment security are a certainty.
But by utilizing prudent and up-to-date guidance, a successful retirement is still well within grasp, the author maintains. “The new retirement is a marathon,” Margetic writes. “The race is not over the moment you retire. You’re just getting started and there are many laps to go.”
Margetic’s book goes well beyond the importance of measuring investment performance. There’s much more to getting ready for retirement than just saving enough money, he notes. Encouraging the reader to make a “mental video” of ideal retirement, he charts a path — using simple diagrams, mnemonic devices and personal assessments — to managing the crucial balance between income sources and lifestyle expenses. Social life, health, long-term care and estate issues are dealt with separately, but also inter-connectedly with finances, in a way that shows how a reader can navigate the volatility we already encounter, with more sure to come.
If Margetic’s writing seems repetitive at times, which it is, it’s more along the lines of a high school teacher drilling important lessons into a student who may not yet realize their import. You can’t be exposed to some of these hard-to-grasp financial concepts too many times when your well being for decades into the future is at stake.
Margetic has delivered a well-written, well-organized book of advice on how to successfully leave the workforce in today’s recessionary landscape. For someone contemplating retirement, or already in its midst, this guidebook is a valuable source of counsel, and will be for years to come.
Also available in hardcover and ebook.