Plan Your Prosperity - Personal Finance

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Whether you’re in retirement, just getting ready to retire, or 5, 10, or 40 years out, this book can help you invest smarter your whole life and yes, plan better for retirement.

Harmful mythology abounds about retirement investing. Many retirees or soon-to-be retirees have heard a plethora of advice. Take 100 (or 120) and subtract your age to get your equity allocation, put the rest in bonds or cash. Buy onlybonds. Buy only high dividend stocks. Or some combination! Buy equity-indexed annuities or some “guaranteed” income product. All examples of a potentially harmful myth many folks believe to be smart, strategic moves.

Investors believe preparing for retirement requires a radically different set of tools or a dizzying array of products. Navigating the world of retirement products and services can be a full-time job. But investing for retirement is, in practice, not much (if at all) different from investing. In Your Retirement Plan, Ken Fisher will give readers a workable strategy to either develop their own retirement investing plan or work more successfully with a professional to increase the likelihood of achieving long-term goals while avoiding common pitfalls. The book will include easy-to-follow steps like
- How to think, correctly, about investing time horizon.
- How to better figure how much income you need
- How to determine if a portfolio can provide that income
- How to figure how much to save each year to achieve retirement goals
- What pitfalls to avoid
- And more. . . .
In this retirement planning book that's not just for retirees, Fisher will hand readers the tools and confidence they need to better plan for the future.
Acknowledgments ix

Chapter 1: What? Me? Retire? 1

The Imagined Dichotomy 3

Two Goals … and Some Non-Goals 4

Definitions and a Pencil 9

Start Immediately. Now. Right Away. 13

Plan Your Prosperity 14

Chapter 2: My Goals Are … What? 17

Why Is This So Hard? 20

Your Investing Goals, Simply 24

Potential Pitfall: Capital Preservation and Growth 26

Inflation’s Insidious Impact 29

Three Percent, Compounded 35

Chapter 3: The Secret Code—Asset Allocation or Benchmark? 37

Benchmark—A Road Map and Measuring Stick 40

Picking a Benchmark 42

The Big Decision—Asset Allocation 45

Potential Pitfall: Age Doesn’t Equal Asset Allocation 49

Benchmark Versus Asset Allocation—What’s the Difference? 50

Chapter 4: Time Horizon—Longer Than You Think 59

Potential Pitfall: Ignoring Opportunity Cost 62

Time Horizon—What Is It? 64

Time Horizon and Benchmark 68

Chapter 5: What’s in a Return? 73

Growth Defi ned 77

The Past as a Guide? 81

Gordon Moore and Endless Innovation 90

Potential Pitfall: Unrealistic Expectations 92

Chapter 6: Getting That Cash Flow 97

Potential Pitfall—The All High-Dividend Portfolio 100

How Much Do You Need? 103

Monte Carlo—Not Just a Casino 107

Let’s Get Bootstrapping 109

Chapter 7: Can I Get There? 117

How Much Do You Have? 120

A Savings Plan 123

Chapter 8: Putting It All Together 131

To Benchmark or Not to Benchmark 134

State Your Goals 136

Know Where You Are 137

Picking an Appropriate Benchmark 138

Finding Professional Help 140

Avoid Being a Fraud Victim 143

And You’re Off! 143

Appendix A: All Hail the Mighty Dow 145

Appendix B: Cash Flow Versus Expenses 155

Appendix C: Expense Categories 161

Appendix D: Personal Balance Sheet 165

Notes 169

About the Authors 173

Index 175
KEN FISHER is best known for his prestigious "Portfolio Strategy" column in Forbes magazine, where his over 28-year tenure of high-profile calls makes him the fourth longest-running columnist in Forbes's 90-plus-year history. He is the founder, Chairman and CEO of Fisher Investments, an independent global money management firm managing tens of billions for individuals and institutions globally. Fisher is ranked #263 on the 2011 Forbes 400 list of richest Americans and #764 on the 2012 Forbes Global Billionaire list. In 2010, Investment Advisor magazine named him among the 30 most influential individuals of the last three decades. Fisher has authored numerous professional and scholarly articles, including the award-winning "Cognitive Biases in Market Forecasting." He has also published eight previous books, including national bestsellers The Only Three Questions That Count, The Ten Roads to Riches, How to Smell a Rat, Debunkeryand Markets Never Forget (But People Do), all published by Wiley. Fisher has been published, interviewed and/or written about in many major American, British and German finance or business periodicals. He has a weekly column in Focus Money, Germany's leading weekly finance and business magazine.

LARA HOFFMANS is Vice President of Content at Fisher Investments, managing editor of MarketMinder.com, a regular contributor to Forbes.com and coauthor of the bestsellers, The Only Three Questions That Count, The Ten Roads to Riches, How to Smell a Rat, Debunkery and Markets Never Forget (But People Do).