Your Retirement Smile ISBN: 9781599329567, Advantage, copyright and written by Dr. Mark McClellan and Tim Streid.
The book opens with several notations of praise for an Orthodontist and an Accountant, the authors, and proceeds to an Introduction, Eight chapters, Acknowledgements, About Macro Wealth, and About Management. The Introduction, “Nobody Likes a Pay Cut”, discusses the generally held belief that everyone tacitly accepts the fact that retirement means a pay cut that hopefully is no more than fifty per cent. The authors declare that such a reduction should not be as inevitable as most believe. The first chapter, “The Fight for your Money”, follows with the fact that there are two approaches, accumulation and acceleration, and that the rules are dependent upon the government, financial institutions and corporations. Thus, taxes, fees, commissions, bad advice and scams all play a part with that of corporations coming largely from built-in obsolescence. The next chapter, “The Big Money Picture” discusses the three phases of wealth – accumulation, distribution and preservation and initiates the need to actually have several sources of income before as well as after retirement. The rest of this chapter, along with those ensuing, build upon this idea and explain how too often individuals find it most difficult to leave the long heavily- touted conventional paths of saving for retirement. In turn, they provide a blueprint for living life to its fullest while working toward retiring and yet being able to reach and continue this same level of little to no loss of income through this period. They also stress the importance of having a personal ‘coach’ in this journey. That it is no less a requirement for your financial security than is such a presence required for attainment of maximum performance in any endeavor. The book closes with final remarks, “About Wealth Management” which provides, in some length, the two authors’ credits with respect to providing the proposed service. A list of pertinent references and another summary of the material already presented and summarized conclude the book.
Discussion: According to the authors’ declaration, this book has been directed at members of the Dental Profession, and most examples set forth are from scenarios by members of this group. Also, most notations of praise are from the same source. Thus fundamentally, all examples and recommendations employ sizeable sums of money. Similarly, much activity recommended also speaks of large quantities of money. The reader further encounters a seemingly excessive amount of repetition and/or an unnecessary belaboring of points already made. No doubt this is the result of well-meaning efforts to explain their feeling of ‘need’ to save the reader from following the time worn path that so generally is accepted and instead to move into the forward thinking plan they are suggesting.
Summary: Presentation of a new approach to retirement that provides excellent suggestions, in at least for this reader, a ‘hard sell’ package that would be much more palatable with judicious editing.
3* 5* ideas; -2 for reasons explained.