Late Bloomer Wealth

prek-12

Book Review: “TEACH and Retire RICH”

Teachers. Are you wary of the bureaucratic and top-down interference with no end in sight? If you are like me, I did a good job for my students for 24 years, but I was FINISHED at 61 years old. I wanted to get out of Los Angeles, live in a retirement community and do the usual and unusual activities that most retirees do: travel, volunteer, donate to worthy causes and write financial books and this review. It’s not that I retired from life and work, it’s that at 61 I was financially independent with only 49% of my salary covered by my teachers’ pension. I opted to do something else. That’s what Daniel Otter’s wonderful book is all about with his title TEACH and Retire RICH.
The word RETIREMENT is beginning to get phased out of the English language. I have not taught for ten years but I am super busy doing what I want to do right here with my blog, writing informational posts on three investment forums, my two books, all to help you become financially independent too. That’s the new buzzword, FI means financial independence.
Daniel Otter is a good friend and my review of his book is bias, but the financial information he provides in his book TEACH and Retire RICH is not. The objective information he provides rarely makes it to our colleagues, the hard-working teachers in the classrooms across America. Why? The volunteer retirement world (403(b) and 457(b)) with public K-12 school districts is mysteriously secretive and very strange world. It is a long and sometimes sad story of why the potentially powerful benefit plan is hardly ever discussed publicly within the education profession. Dan’s book is full of objective information that begins to make this secretive world transparent and will work for you as it worked for me.

K-12 School Districts and NAGDCA: Will They Ever Get Together?

Before I report on my takeaways from this year’s conference, I want to discuss the background of NAGDCA and what this wonderful professional organization does for us. Our Los Angeles Unified School District “Retirement Investment Advisory Committee” members may not realize how important NAGDCA is in supporting and assisting us with our ultimate goal of reforming the 403(b) into a fiduciary powerhouse. Public K-12 403(b)s have never been a fiduciary. Thus, LAUSD took advantage of showing the world by providing a fiduciary example with our Award Winning 457(b). Sandy and I thank the committee for voting to pay for our expenses in each of the last four years. We thank Benefits Administration for paying the annual NAGDCA governmental membership fees. Without LAUSD’s institutional membership, Sandy and I could not attend. Finally, we thank this great organization for doing the right thing for all public sector employees.

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