年紀漸近中年的我，看這本書特別有感受，小時候對工作常常會有一些天馬行空的幻想，比如說覺得比爾蓋茲、賈伯斯輟學創業很厲害，實際上百分之99的人都是平凡人，職涯不會只有不斷往上爬，遇到中年失業會開始漸漸往下掉，如果是整天埋首在工作，下班後還有家人小孩要照顧的人，可能一時之間會不知道如何應對。
作者用3句話來總結：
享受物質的一切，愛你周遭的朋友，敬畏那神秘的力量
資本是努力辛苦得來的，拿來消費享受犒賞沒太大問題，但不要過度用獲取多少金錢、權力、容貌來定義自己， 那是追逐物質世界的成功，把自己當造物者看待，若沒有做好準備，年輕時爬得越高，在不知不覺經歷過人生高峰後，搞不好讓你跌得越重，提早為人生第2階段做好準備。適度展現出你的弱點，而不是隱藏它，當用你的缺點去跟別人做連結，你會發現愛在你的人生中開始成長了。
另外此書主要是用心態、概念的角度告訴讀者如何重啟新的人生，實際上工作要如何做調整、如何面對AI取代人類的挑戰，就不是本書的重點，建議大家可以去翻閱其它書籍。
總而言之，如果對自己的生涯有些疑惑的可以閱讀此書
This is a financial planning book focused on middle-income or upper-income workers. Low-income people, defined here as at the bottom of 30 percent or so of the workforce, definitely need retirement target income exceeding 70 percent of their final pay. They’ve already been well taken care of with pensions from government programs.
The keynote of The Essential Retirement Guide:
When coming to the financial abilities, people in their 80s were generally more confident than those in their 60s, even though the older ones scored barely half compared to the highest. While older test subjects scored quite poorly by any absolute or relative measure, their confidence in their financial abilities was actually higher than that of their younger counterparts. Preemptive measures need to be taken. We should handle this while we are still young enough to use whatever insights we have at our disposal.
2. Your financial strategy should be simple.
Keeping your financial strategy simple may not be an optimal choice, but it is better than varying the mix for the wrong reasons. There is no correlation between high fees and high returns.
3.Exposing yourself unduly to downside risks is irrational if the only upside is to produce a windfall gain that you do not really need.
4.Long-term care insurance is not an effective choice
Insurance is most effective when
However, Long-term care insurance doesn’t meet the criteria.
5. Don’t overspend
In a consumerist society, our reach tends to beyond our grasp. If you make $80,000 a year, pretend as if it were just $70,000 and save the rest.
In summary, the author, Frederick Vettese, specializes in actuary and has spent his whole career in retirement consulting and workplace pension plans. He provides a lot of insights about retirement planning using his actuarial expertise. In addition, he uses a lot of contextual scenarios in explaining concepts such as wealth target and workplace pension plans. It’s a highly recommended book.
