Plan Your Prosperity: The Only Retirement Guide You'll Ever Need, Starting Now--Whether You're 22, 52 or 82

Acknowledgments

This book, my ninth, is a bit of a departure for me. Normally, I write on the capital markets aspect of investing—what to buy and when and why and how to avoid tactical investing errors. This is the first book I’ve written that focuses almost solely on the decisions that must be made before you get to that point—and very critical decisions they are. And because so much later investing success depends on getting those big, early decisions right, and with so many people still looking backwards at the big bear market in 2008 instead of forward at the rest of their (potentially, very long) investing time horizon, I felt now was the time to write a book on the planning side of investing.

Books are a hobby for me, not a vocation. And as the years pass, I find more of my leisure time getting appropriated by family (a wonderful thing). So my supporting cast is of utmost importance—these books could not happen without them. First, I must thank and acknowledge Lara Hoffmans, who now dedicates most of her time to writing for me and my firm. This is our sixth book together, and we’ve got it down like clockwork. She drafts the book from my specifications and guidelines, and she marshals the research, while I get the fun part of conceptualizing, styling and editing.

Backing up Lara while she’s focusing exclusively on the books is a very talented crew of writers on my firm’s Content team, including Todd Bliman, Elisabeth Dellinger, Naj Srinivas and Amanda Williams. Lara simply ...