Pimp Your Finances

My 401K is down 45% this year, but that doesn’t bother me (very much).  I try to take a long term point of view with my finances.  But I recently realized that even my decades long point of view is far too short sighted.

I’ve never taken the time to figure out exactly how much money I need for retirement.  And more importantly, I’ve never stopped to think about what I want to do when I get there.

Lee Eisenberg tackles both of these topics in “The Number – A Completely Different Way to Think About the Rest of Your Life.”  For me, the book was an eye-opener.

The Number is that magical net worth you need to stop thinking about a career and start thinking about fulfillment.  It’s best summarized by a Wall Street broker in the book: “it’s f*ck you money”.  After your net worth reaches this number, you have freedom.  Freedom to walk away from your job and travel the world.  Or start your own business.  Or dedicate yourself to a higher cause.  All this assumes that you’ve planned accordingly, and have reached your goal.

Eisenberg doesn’t tell you exactly how to calculate your Number.  Instead, he suggests some resources and gives you some things to think about.  First, you have to know what you want out of retirement.  Where you want to live (and how many houses you’d like).  What kind of lifestyle you want.  How much money you’d like to give to charity, or to your family.  How often you’d like to travel.

Most importantly, he gives advice on the hardest part of retirement: figuring out what to do with your time.  Even if you have all the money in the world, it won’t bring you happiness unless you use it to do something that brings you a sense of fulfillment.  This is what sets “The Number” apart from other books.  It doesn’t tell you what to do.  It forces you to think about what drives you.

Its secondary goal is to help you prepare for retirement.  To do this, you have to consider the difficulties and uncertainties you’ll face along the way.  Among them are an uncertain economy, social pressures to spend, and the potential of being drowned in a sea of complicated and ever-changing financial choices.

This book is definitely aimed at an older crowd – baby boomers on the verge of retirement – but I don’t understand why it is not marketed at a younger crowd.  The principles apply to all ages, but you’re in a better place to adjust your plans at a younger age.  After all, time is our best friend in the financial world.

Title:  The Number: A Completely Different Way to Think About the Rest of Your Life

Book Jacket Summary:

It’s the burning question for 76 million baby boomers.  It is a question that ought to burn for everyone over thirty.  It is a life-defining issue.  most of us don’t want to face it, but we have to.  It’s The Number: How much money do you need to secure the rest of your life?  Do you know what your Number is?  Do you know how to think about it?  Do you know what you want to do with it?

In this new and fascinating book, Lee Eisenberg looks at The Number as no one has before.  The Number allows all of us to face our inner demons, and our dreams.  The concept, and the book, are impossible to forget.

Lee Eisenberg left a successful career in journalism in search of his Number.  Along the way he realized that he was but one of millions setting off for the rest of their lives without a good map.  He took an intriguing and entertaining tour – speaking to wealth gurus, life coaches, financial advisers, everyday investors, and many others, to explore the secrets of The Number.  The result is a provocative field guide to our psyches and finances, and an urgently useful book for every man and woman over thirty.

The Number will help you have the money conversations you have been avoiding.  It will help you think about the kind of life you wan, and the kind of help you need to achieve it.  It will make you laugh, ruefully and otherwise, and it will scare the living daylights out of you.  It will help you discover:

- whether you are a Number procrastinator, plucker, plotter, or prober

- why you wander through your financial “lost years” until it is almost too late

- why young people always under call their Number

- why downshifting into retirement is so challenging

- how the second half of life is being reinvented as we live on for decades, forging new patterns of work and recreation.

The Number will help you answer the biggest questions of all: What should you do with the rest of your life, and at what cost?  It is the one book to read before you talk to an investment adviser, before you flip open a retirement guide – and above all, before the rest of your life slips by, unexamined.

Author:  Lee Eisenberg

Target Audience:  People over thirty, but I think any age can benefit

Pages:  248

Topics / Chapters:

1. Welcome to Numberland

2. A Field Guide

3. The Eisenberg Uncertainty Principles

4. Debt Warp

5. The Lost Years

6. Alone at Sea

7. The Forest for the Trees

8. Crash Dummies

9. The Health and Welfare Crash

10. Covering your Assets

11. Advice Squad Confidential

12. Night Sweats

13. Downshifting with Jung

14. Sun Spots

15. A Needleman in the Haystack

16. Deep Breathing

17. Bottom Lines

Should I Read It?  Yes.  It’s aimed at an older crowd, but everyone should think about this topic, even at a young age.