Know What You Don’t Know

You make a nice living. You have years and years of experience. Now you’re getting ready to retire. Let me tell you, it’s time to know what you don’t know, because you don’t get a second chance to recover from innocent mistakes.

What kind of mistakes? Well, I got a call the other day from a gentleman who has all of his funds inside retirement accounts. He did not realize that upon retirement he will have to pay income tax on every dollar that he withdraws from these accounts.

Maybe that sounds like a minor error, but it means he does not and will not have enough money to support the lifestyle that he and his wife would like.

It is amazing to me that someone can work their whole life to accumulate a substantial nest egg and then think they have the expertise and knowledge necessary to make this money last the rest of their life when retirement planning and investments are not their area of expertise.

If you do your own planning, before you make any major retirement or investing decisions promise me that at a minimum you will read the following three books: