You'RE Fifty--Now What?: Investing for the Second Half of Your Life - Hardcover

Schwab, Charles R.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0609605623 ISBN 13: 9780609605622

Publisher: Crown Publications, 2000

Synopsis

A practical guide to financial planning for middle-aged Americans outlines a program for assessing one's financial worth, determining the needs of the future, and putting one's money to work in order to provide financial security.

About this title

Review

As Boomers reach midlife faster than a new Beatles CD can climb the charts, many are wondering if they'll have sufficient resources to comfortably make it through their golden years. You're Fifty--Now What?, by investment guru Charles Schwab, addresses these concerns with a step-by-step road map to help the middle-aged assess where they're at, determine where they want to go, and pick the proper mix of investments to get there. "While getting older isn't a bad thing," Schwab writes, "being unprepared for it is. And by not understanding the financial part of your future, you sabotage yourself and limit your choices." Not surprisingly--given the author's background as founder of the discount brokerage that bears his name--the book contends that you have to remain an active investor for the rest of your life in order to make it financially over the long haul. To do so it advocates using as aggressive an approach as you can comfortably handle, centred on a combination of broad-based index funds and actively managed mutual funds or individual stocks.

With plenty of easy-to-use worksheets, Schwab helps you take stock of everything you've accumulated, determine how much it costs you to live now, and estimate what it will take to maintain that lifestyle into the future. The latter is determined by calculating everything from projected housing and tax obligations to food and entertainment expenses, while life-expectancy tables, inflation adjustment factors and investment return rates allow you to see where you stand versus where you need to be. Schwab then addresses reaching these goals through a proper investment mix. (Sidebars explaining the basics guide even novices through these critical steps.) Additional chapters detail ways to develop a regular long-term cash flow, and suggest how to monitor its progress while making adjustments when necessary. There also is information on financial advisors, insurance, estate plans, and charitable giving, adding up to a wealth of specifics presented in a manner that virtually everyone should be able to understand and follow. --Howard Rothman

About the Author

CHARLES R. SCHWAB is the founder, chairman of the board, and co-CEO of The Charles Schwab Corporation, which is one of the nation's largest financial services firms (www.schwab.com). He is a member of the board of trustees of Stanford University, where he earned his B.A. in economics and his M.B.A. from the Graduate School of Business. Author of the bestselling Charles Schwab's Guide to Financial Independence, he is also the founder and chairman of the Schwab Foundation for Learning, a nonprofit agency providing support and guidance for parents of children with learning differences, as well as chairman of All Kinds of Minds Institute, a nonprofit institute dedicated to the understanding of differences in learning. He is the father of five children and lives with his wife, Helen, in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Edition details

• Publisher: Crown Publications
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0609605623
• ISBN 13: 9780609605622
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 325