Douglas Andrew’s book targets the baby boomer generation and tries to convince them that it is not too late to become a millionaire and avoid living on soup kitchen handouts to survive retirement. That’s a pretty tall order and a lot of authors have failed at this exact same premise. While Andrew’s book is well written and contains some good advice, there is just not enough here to make it stand out from the other books in this overcrowded field.

The first part of the book is dedicated to the art of financial planning and if you can wade through it to get to the parts you really want to read – bravo. Personally, he spent far too much time covering this area and it started to feel a bit like filler halfway through. With a catchy title, most readers are going to want the goods pretty quickly and forcing them to sit through half a book of financial planning advice is not a good idea if you want them to stay connected.

He constantly stresses frugality and the importance of not consuming. Well – good luck with that. We all have to consume, and if we didn’t the economy would implode. I’m certainly not saying we should all throw caution to the wind and spend every last dime, but over-frugality doesn’t make much sense either. It’s the happy medium that counts when it comes to managing your finances, not the extremes.

Once he does finally get to the point, you’re treated to advice that you should rip your money out of its nice safe little IRA and throw it into life insurance investments. It doesn’t take long to wonder whether the author has a vested interest in this since the tone of the book shifts to a full on sales pitch. While life insurance investments can be useful, it’s certainly not a good idea to go blow your entire IRA on them. Another disturbing point is the fact that he acknowledges that tax laws for life insurance investments “may” be changing and he “thinks” that if you invest now, you’ll be grandfathered in.

I’m sorry but “think” is not enough to get me to cash in my IRA, thank you very much. While he does include some figures to illustrate his points, in my opinion, this is simply far too much to ask of any reader. In addition, while he did cover the importance of annuities, and other safe investments, there was no attention paid to the importance of having more than one source of income.

Baby boomers are being phased out rapidly from companies all across the country and many are finding that financial ruin is looming after being laid off. There is also a lack of advice on how to leverage debt (which is vital for readers that may not have plush savings accounts) to create more income for retirement.

The book failed on many fronts, and honestly, I cannot recommend it to anyone.

Originally posted 2008-11-15 04:39:11. Republished by Old Post Promoter

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Book Review

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baby boomer, baby boomer generation, catchy title, caution to the wind, douglas andrew, extremes, financial planning, frugality, good advice, half a book, happy medium, insurance investments, last dime, life insurance, managing your finances, millionaire, premise, sales pitch, soup kitchen, vested interest