Saving For Retirement by Gail MarksJarvis

Saving for Retirement without Living Like a Pauper or Winning the Lottery by Gail MarsJarvis, Updated & Revised, August 2012 ISBN 0132271907 Kindle Edition.

This is copy of my review for this book for the Amazon Vine program.

I wasn’t exactly sure what this book would contain, secrets for how to get the money to save so you don’t retire penniless, or would it be about investing strategies? It turns out to be a well written guide book to the basics of investing in the different retirement accounts available in the USA. I was impressed by this book and even though I have read many books on investing, none were as clear and simple to understand as this book. I learned quite a few things, including what a Roth IRA can do for you. Any other time that I have read about a Roth IRA I never understood why it had such appeal. One simple paragraph or two and I comprehended. That is a sign of a good “How-To” book. Make it simple enough that not only can the reader understand, but they can also put the advice into practice.

One of my favorite things in this book was the constant pushing to remind young adults that starting to save now in a 401K or IRA would over the long haul leave them with a tidy retirement fund of somewhere in the vicinity of $1,000,000. Yes, we are aware of inflation on that amount over 30-40+ years, but how much better to have that million dollars even if its spending ability has diminished, than no money saved at all? This is a book every parent should read and then give a copy to each of their high school age kids or college kids at the latest, so they can secure a future for themselves. I will be passing my copy over to my son to read and I anticipate some good conversations with him about the book and what investing plan we both should come up with. I’m so late in the game but financial problems have reared there ugly heads for me way too many times, but I do look forward to trying to get our finances earning the best they can.

For anyone who doesn’t understand the stock market, how to invest in their 401Ks and IRAs, this book will help you to not only understand but make wise choices because of the knowledge they have gained. A must read book for the baffled.

One thing I was very impressed about in this book, is that it was written without ever once saying this or that fund is ‘sexy’. Somehow over the last few years, the word sexy has come to replace words like great, fantastic, etc. Since stocks and investing are asexual, they literally can’t be ‘sexy’ and I’m glad that this writer knew that. Unfortunately this bad habit of some writers tends to feel like fingernails on a chalkboard to me.

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I've been on disability for about 8 years now, so effectively I'm retired, but that doesn't mean I have a nice little nest egg and with my hubby 9 years younger, he has almost 20 years to 'retirement'. Do self-employed people ever actually retire? Well anyways, I still want to try to squeeze as much out of what little we have invested as possible before his body gives up entirely. This book gave me lots of good ideas and ideas for things that I want to investigate. I hope you get a copy and study it yourself.