Fast Facts about “Late Bloomer Millionaires”
What is your book about?
Our story about how we retired early, presented as a case study of how a couple of regular investors fought long and hard to learn the investing process by reading and studying while confronting head-on two of the biggest stock market crashes in history and still able to retire early with a comfortable nest egg.
Started in our mid to late 30s with little money:
- We made gut-wrenching mistakes, including investing in annuities and over investing in tech sector stocks.
- We made a million $ by 2000 in the tech sector, and then lost it as the tech bubble popped!
- We show in vivid detail our mistakes in thought and action.
- Without blaming or grousing, we stayed in the market long-term with commitment to each other and learning new ways to manage our finances.
- By the time the Housing Bubble and Recession hit in 2008, we had implemented our plan and regained the Million $ we had previously lost.
Why did you write the book? What inspired you to write it?
THREE reasons:
- To help improve the retirement planning circumstances and outcomes of educators, women, LGBT, boomers and late starters (Young people will benefit too).
- To show that taking responsibility for retirement planning is not so scary or as dangerous as Wall Street brokers and the annuity sales force would like you to believe.
- To write a book that is encouraging, fun and useful.
Who is your audience? Who did you write the book for?
For Millions of people who are reluctant or too scared to get serious about retirement planning.
- Of course, late starters, like ourselves, and Boomers, or even earlier starters who start prudently,
- Women tend to think long-term and tend to buy and hold their investments, so we feel our story will resonate with them,
- The gay and lesbian community may find in our journey role models for making a shared effort to save for the long haul,
- Educators like us who may not even realize they’ve been blindsided by insurance products with buried fees in their contracts that reduce their monthly retirement income,
- Finally, others who find the bulk of investment books are too technical and intimidating.
What is different about your book compared to so many other investment books? What is your contribution to the personal finance literature?
OMG! PLENTY!
- Many of the existing books are dry, humorless, and lack a personal connection with the reader; they are about data. Part 1 shows our connection to the reader in terms of growing up in a modest background, the first to go to college, living within our means, small family home with an outhouse or one bathroom.
- Our case-study methodology is this couple’s story: a couple who planned together, lost a million dollars in one bubble and made it back in time to retire comfortably. We show the reader how we did it. We know that the reader will get more out of this book than others because our automatic connection as regular folks trying to make sense of the financial information everywhere. We believe we identify with readers than the authors of the professionally written books.
What makes you an authority (expertise, qualifications, and certifications) to write a book on a subject you never even formally studied?
- Our experience with the “authorities” was that we were deceived, even with our written permission. We realized those letters behind a name, and the ratings of insurance companies and TV analysts don’t necessarily know what is essential for an investment plan. They are there to make money for themselves, to sell something to us. That is NOT an authority, it’s a sales job. A genuine authority is a fee-only fiduciary financial advisor.
- Our qualifications come from hands-on experience, which taught us to avoid those self-serving authorities and take responsibility for our own learning and investing. We already made money, now we’re sharing how!
- We show our expertise in our documented journey, navigating booms and busts. We learned from a great group of investment authors.
How is your book similar to the investment books now available?
Many books discuss the indexing or passive strategy and philosophy. Our book supports and validates the building blocks that help make those strategies work:
- long-term thinking (buy and hold),
- diverse investments in equities and bonds,
- controlling costs and identifying hidden costs,
- asset allocation among the major asset classes,
- understanding risk, without technical jargon, and
- using basic math, no secrets, just lots of good ideas!