Retirement Planning For Dummies

Introduction

Retirement. The word conjures up different things for different people.

You might picture a life of leisure, walking hand-in-hand with your significant other on a beach. Someone else, maybe even your significant other, might dream of opening a flower shop. Some people can’t wait to escape their days jobs, while others either love their careers and don’t want to stop or want to start a new career — even if they’re 70.

You might have heard that you'll have a comfortable retirement if you save a certain amount of money by a certain age. “Just save a million bucks and you’re good,” such advice goes. Others say you need to max out your 401(k) or give up your daily cup of coffee. Perhaps you're starting to fear retirement planning because you’re not doing something that experts say you must do to retire.

This book is different. My guiding principle is that each person's idea of a happy retirement is different. Your goal for retirement is as unique as you. That’s why a rule of thumb or guidance for someone else’s retirement is not an exact roadmap for your vision of the future.

This realization is both liberating and challenging. It's liberating to know that you can work with your current situation and goals and still find solutions for retirement planning.

So what’s the challenge? The tougher part is figuring out what you want your retirement to look like, especially if your retirement is decades away. So if guessing what you want your future to look like is so challenging, ...