You Do NOT Need a Financial Advisor to Retire Comfortably

This is a comment that I placed on US News in regards to their story Understanding the Psychology of Retirement Planning:

I have worked less than half of my adult life and I didn't start saving for my retirement until I was in my forties. Even so, I will be okay in retirement with an adequate retirement income.

I have never profited from any house appreciation because I rented for over 40 years. Moreover, I have never profited from stock investments because the majority of my savings are in safe investments. The key is to save 40 to 50 percent of your income once you start making a decent income so that you can enjoy being retired and experience 1001 Ways to Enjoy Your Retirement.

I disagree with the author that you need a financial advisor. I have never used a financial advisor and I don't ever intend to use one.

In fact, I would recommend to people that they stay away from financial advisors, regardless of whether they are fee-only or work on a commission basis. I don't place any credibility on whether they are accredited with any so-called financial association. These associations tend to be self-serving, trying to exclude others from the particular area of work.

With so many baby boomers not having saved enough for retirement, what percentage of the baby boomers working as financial planners haven't saved enough for retirement themselves.

Did these financial advisors see the housing bust coming and tell their clients to get out of housing? I bet over 95 percent of the financial advisors took a beating on their houses and investments because they were also the same ones advocating that a house is a great investment and that stocks were a great investment. If these people were so wrong, why would you place any trust in them? If they themselves haven't saved as much as they should have, they have no credibility with me and they should have absolutely no credibility with anyone else.

If I ever considered hiring a financial planner, I would ask him or her to provide proof in the way of their own investments and assets over the last 10 to 20 years to convince me that they followed their own advice and that this advice paid off big-time for them.

Incidentally, Larry Winget in his book You're Broke Because You Want to Be advocates similar advice in regards to hiring a financial advisor.

In short, once you have a sizeable amount saved, consider hiring a financial person to help you invest your money but only if the person can prove that he or she has at least 10 to 20 times as much money as you have. If the financial advisor can’t prove to you with certified accounting documentation that he or she has saved a big amount of money using their own techniques, don’t hire him or her. Why would you want to pay someone to manage your money if he or she is broke or close to it? Trust me, you are liable to wind up broke yourself.

Ernie Zelinski
Author of How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free
(Over 125,000 copies sold and published in 9 languages)
and the forthcoming How NOT to Retire Broke: Prosperity Principles to Help Your Create $500,000 or Much More for Your Retirement

Here are some retirement quotes and retirement sayings to help you with your retirement planning so that you retire rich and die broke:

If you have debt and you are going into retirement,
I don't think you are ready for retirement,"
— Gary Gilgen, Director of the financial planning department at Rehmann Financial in Troy, Mich

The biggest trouble maker you will ever meet watches you shave or
put makeup on your face in the mirror every morning.
— Unknown Wise Person

Bill Hagen, work is now past you
Allow me these words to say
You are now free as a bird,
Today is your retirement day.
— Dave Erhard

Early to Retire
Late to Rise
Leaves a man happy,
less wealthy, and
wife pondering,
was it wise?
Retirement T-Shirt for Sale on Zazzle

The Ideal Retirement Plan: "Marry an old rich broad and wait for her to die."
— Ivan Wilson (commenting on an online article about retirment.)

I used to have dreams that I died at my desk.
Now that I've retired, I don't have those dreams anymore.
— Haselback (commenting on an online article about retirment.)

Retirement Planning: Reduce Your Standard of Living Today If You Want Any Standard of Living in Retirement

Welcome to the new retirement where your retirement wishes may be fantasy. The odds are high that you will exhaust your retirement savings after 10 or 20 years of retirement, according to the latest Retirement Readiness Report.

About half of those now aged 56 to 62 are at risk of not having sufficient retirement income to pay for basic retirement expenses and uninsured medical expenses, according to the study.

The study also found lower-income retirees are most likely to run out of retirement savings after 10 and certainly 20 years of retirement, and higher-income retirees are least likely to run out of money.

In fact, retirees don't run out of retirement income. As they age and wind down their assets, they reduce their standard of living dramatically.

In other words, people do not completely run out of money even though the studies say that retirees will. They take action either to spend less or to go back to work to earn more retirement income.

Other research found that about 65 percent of American households are at risk of not having enough retirement income to maintain their living standard in retirement.

Both studies assume that people will retire at age 65.

That is not likely, however. Many Americans are forced to retire earlier and most even if they want to work later cannot find a job in retirement. So before you make your retirement speech, include your spouse in your retirement plan, have some fun at work, and start saving big time - at least 30 percent of your income as I have been doing to insure that my retirement plan is sound.

Plain and simple: Saving a lot more money and reducing your standard of living now might be the only way to be reasonably certain you will enjoy any decent standard of living in your retirement and be able to write letters about the joy of not working.

Some retirement quotes to put things in perspective:

People who don't respect money don't have any.
— J. Paul Getty, Billionaire Oil Tycoon

It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.
— Oscar Wilde

Money will appear when you are doing the right thing in your life.
— Michael Phillips

One week into retirement, you'll be so damned bored that you'll want to stick bicycle
spokes into your eyes. You'll probably opt to look for another job or start another company. Kinda defeats the purpose of waiting [for retirement], doesn't it.
- Timothy Ferris in The 4-Hour Workweek

Teacher's Retirement Motto: I Used to Teach. Now I Have No Class.
— Unknown wise person

I have retired, un retired, and retired again all in the past 10 years.
— Unknown retiree

The Ideal Retirement Plan: Marry an old rich broad and wait for her to die.
— Ivan Wilson (commenting on an online article about retirment.)

It [retirement] was absolutely boring. You can't go and say, 'I'm retired now. That's it!' It won't take long and you're really gone for good and someone throws the last shovel of dirt on a coffin with your name on it. That's the moment you're really retiring — when you die.
— Ozzy Osbourne

Word of Mouth Advertising for Retirement Books

I know that word-of-mouth advertising is still the best form of promotion for any book and that it has played a big part in my two retirement books The Joy of Not Working and How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free having sold almost 375,000 copies for the two.

Here is a great post on the Reader Reviews newsletter by Irene Watson about word-of- mouth advertising for books.

Word-of-Mouth - The Incredible Challenge

Irene knows what she is talking about:

Pay particular attention to her comment:

"According to Publishers Marketplace the average sales for self-published, subsidy, or small publishers is 200 books - total - lifetime of book. And, those are usually purchased by friends and relatives."

Apply the 80/20 rule to these figures, and the average lifetime sales for the bottom 80 percent of these books is probably about 50 copies, if that. And again, purchased by friends and relatives.

So as I approach 100,000 copies sold of the English edition of How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free and another almost 30,000 copies of the foreign editions of the book, I know that I have a not-too-bad book.

If you would like to make it in the writing and publishing business, then watch this video:

Gary Vaynerchuk: Do what you love (no excuses!)

Here are a few of my latest retirement resources on my various retirement websites:

The New Retirement

Retirement Speeches on The Retirement Cafe

Retirement T-shirts to Help You Retire Happy, Wild, and Free

Include Your Spouse in Your Retirement Plan and Not in My Retirement Plan

Retirement Letters to Announce Your Liberation

Running out of Retirement Income Scares Retirees More Than Dying

According to a recent survey of 3,200 baby boomers by Allianz Life Insurance Co, about 61 percent of retirees and soon-to-be retired say they fear outliving their retirement money more than they fear death.

What's more, 31 percent of these baby boomers said they don't know what their retirement expenses will be, and 36 percent have no idea if their retirement income will last.

In response to this survey, several financial and retirement writers have been advocating that baby boomers calculate how much retirment income they will need to retire comfortabley. In other words, they should find a good answer to the question, "How much do I need to retire?"

Following was my comment to an article in which someone was advocating that baby boomers spend some time calculating what their retirement expenses will be and how much retirement income they will need:

As you say, the exercise in determining how much money you will need for retirement will not result in perfect information.

But even if people could come up with perfect information, most people won't make use of this information because they aren't about to increase their savings much, if at all, and will likely need at least some type of retirement career.

There are two problem conditions that most North Americans suffer from:


1. A need is any luxury that their neighbor happens to have.

2. Instant gratification takes too long.

I have just started writing a book called How NOT to Retire BROKE in which I am going to make the point that saving 10 percent of your income is for amateurs and losers and people should save at least 40 perent of their income, like I started to do when I turned 45 because I had no money saved at that time.

Of course, I think I have done well by saving 40 percent of my income and not all that concerned about not having enough for retirement.

But I was delighted to hear that someone is doing even better with their saving rate.

On January 17, 2010, in reply to a blog post Five Reasons Why You Will Retire Broke and Unhappy, an individual who writes his or her own blog post stated:



"I personally am taking my retirement savings seriously and have by living very frugally been able to increase my savings to 60 percent of my gross earnings. I’m targeting a very early retirement. Achieving this high rate has been partly achieved by watching my Lifestyle Creep as you identify in Point 5. As I achieve pay increases I have actively decided not to change my standard of living."


In short, knowing how much money people need to retire comfortably will do them absolutely no good if they can't handle money. Saving for retirement takes handling money properly.

Now for one of my favorite retirement quotes:

It was J.P. Getty who said, "People who don't respect money don't have any."

Ernie J. Zelinski
Best-Selling Author, Innovator, and Creativity Consultant
Author of How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free
(Over 125,000 copies sold and published in 9 languages)
and The Joy of Not Working
(Over 250,000 copies sold and published in 17 languages)

Advertising on My Many Retirement Websites

I get a lot of inquiries from people wanting to advertise on my many retirement websites.

Here is one I received recently.

From: Brooke Allen
To: Ernie Zelinski
Sent: Wed, April 21, 2010 7:02:45 PM
Subject: Brief question about retirement-cafe.com

Hello Ernie,

Would you consider placing a promotional link on your webpage: Retire Happy?

The link would be for a website which has art schools and college reviews as its main keywords.

I have a limited budget, but I am hoping there is a reasonable price we could arrange since it's just a tiny piece of screen real estate I'm interested in.

Please let me know if you're open to this, and if not I appreciate your time and wish you the best of luck with your site.

Thank You!

Brooke Allen

Better Link Advertising

This was my response:

From: Ernie Zelinski
To: Brooke
Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2010 2:07 AM
Subject: Re: Brief question about retirement-cafe.com

Hello Brooke:

Interestingly, your inquiry was the third I received on Wednesday about advertising on my retirement websites.

I want to commend you for naming the particular website, the particular webpage, and the nature of your link. (Some people are really secretive about what they would like.)

If you check the Inspiration to Help You Enjoy More Leisure on The Joy of Not Working website, you will see a link for "blackjack" for which I am being paid $130 for the year.

Similarly I already have one text-based ad on The Retirement Cafe on the Fun Things to Do In Retirement webpage for which I was paid $110 for a year.

I can place a link for you on the Retire Happy webpage for a similar price.

One Note: The Fun Things to Do In Retirement webpage gets five times as much traffic as the Retire Happy webpage ont The Retirement Cafe.

So you may want to place your ad on the Fun Things to Do In Retirement webpage instead. I can place your ad near the top if your website and the text is something that I approve of.

Also you may want to consider my Retirement Jobs webpage on The Real Success Resource Center.

The Retirement Jobs webpage gets about three times as much traffic as the Retire Happy webpage on the Retirement Cafe and usually comes in the number 4 to 7 spot on Google for a "retirement jobs" search ahead of my other Unreal Jobs for Retirement and my Squidoo Retirement Jobs webpages.

Anyway, let me know what you would like to pay and where you would like to place the ad and I will make the decision.

Many thanks and so long for now,

Ernie J. Zelinski
The Creativity Guy Too Prosperous to Do Mornings
Best-Selling Author, Innovator, and Unconventional Career Expert
Author of the Bestseller, How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free
(Over 125,000 copies sold and published in 9 languages)
and the International Bestseller The Joy of Not Working
(Over 250,000 copies sold and published in 17 languages)

The Retirement Quotes Cafe

Incidentally, I never heard back from this person. I think that a reply would be a decency that anyone with a little bit of integrity and excellence would expend.