Seven Years to Seven Figures: The Fast-Track Plan to Becoming a Millionaire

Chapter 11. THE BABY BOOMER CHALLENGE: Why 50- and 60-Year-Olds Must Follow the Seven Years to Seven Figures Plan

On January 1, 2006—the day I started writing this book—Kathleen Casey-Kirschling turned 60.

Who is Kathleen Casey-Kirschling? According to the record books, she is the first of my generation, the first baby born in 1946 and, therefore, the first baby boomer.

In the newspapers that morning, there were several articles about her. All of them had the same angle:what are the baby boomers thinking about now? And the answers were the same:we are thinking about retirement.

Ah, retirement! That lovely notion! Living comfortably without toil, without stress, without working! Who could resist such an idea?

Not me, nor my contemporaries. Not even our parents. But before the turn of the 20th century, before the advent of the modern city with its population migrations and proliferation of factories and office buildings, retirement didn't exist.

In the pre-industrial days, you worked until you dropped. As you aged, you did less of the hardest work, but you worked. This is still the rule in many agrarian cultures. Old people stay in the family circle (usually as respected elders) until, surrounded by their children and grandchildren, they curl up and die.

THE BOOMERS TURN 60

Born one second after midnight on January 1, 1946, the Philadelphia Inquirer heralded Kathleen Casey-Kirschling as the first child born to the post-World War II generation. Later that same year, it's interesting to note, ...