PROLOGUE: MAKING HAY
By most standards we were certainly comfortable-not
Bill Gates comfortable, but sufficiently flush that we'd never have
to worry about setting up house in an empty Sub-Zero carton. But the
question of whether we had achieved a sufficient Number, whether we
had enough to shelter us from life's jolts, nagged at me more days than
not.
PART ONE: CHASING IT
CHAPTER 1. WELCOME TO NUMBERLAND
Most of us were told at an early age that it
isn't nice to talk about money, period. It isn't nice to brag about
having money, and it's wrong to envy those who have more than we do.
The Number is also hard to talk about because it holds a different value
for each of us. What's a big Number to me is not to you. The Number
can be a hundred thousand. A million. Ten million. Or infinity, if you're
an investment banker.
CHAPTER 2. A FIELD GUIDE
Number chasers fall into four basic personality
types. Most people are procrastinators. These are men and women who
have reached their forties, even fifties, without any sort of financial
plan in hand. Avoidance is the name of their game, fear of lifestyle
relapse notwithstanding. Why the sloth? Well, some people don't want
to think about old age. Others don't understand how they should invest.
All are in limbo, concerned lest they discover they don't have enough
to see them through their dotage, or because they can't discuss it with
their spouses for fear of starting world war III.
CHAPTER 3. THE EISENBERG UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLES
We feel discontented about tomorrow. It isn't
so much future shock as future denial. There are a half dozen good explanations
for why people aren't planning for the next few decades. Call these
the Eisenberg Uncertainty Principles, which will guide the twists of
the story to come.
CHAPTER 4. DEBT WARP
Debt Warp holds that our whip-it-out credit
card culture makes it so easy to buy stuff that people delude themselves
into thinking they're more affluent, better set for the future, than
they are. Debt Warp reshapes reality and turns age-old precepts about
frugality upside down.
CHAPTER 5. THE LOST YEARS
Some people stay in the Lost Years Club forever.
Some just accept it, others develop a chip on their shoulder when it
comes to money. I know quite a few people who carry these chips. They
believe that if there was any justice in the world there would be a
direct correlation between the size of one's number and one's ability
to be funny, original, and charming at dinner parties.
CHAPTER 6. ALONE AT SEA
The impulse to get out the calculator and start
planning is most often triggered by the daydream of an early retirement.
This reverie, however, is frequently disturbed by all those nasty questions
about how much is enough. So here you are, pushing fifty, your doubles
partner is dead, and nobody makes eye contact with you anymore. Suddenly,
the bottom falls out of your determined resolve. What time does the
game come on?
CHAPTER 7. THE FOREST FOR THE TREES
A show of hands, please: how many of you are
ready to devote next weekend and many thereafter to arriving at the
conclusion that your number may be inadequate and that you're fundamentally
clueless as to how to spend your next thirty years in a meaningful way?
Maybe it's your employer's fault.
PART TWO: FIGURING IT
CHAPTER 8. CRASH DUMMIES
Until these four strangers showed up, everyone
in this book has been real, their names withheld to protect the anxious
and uncertain. But these four case studies, and a few others to follow,
are members of a fictional family. Think of them as crash dummies, here
to do you a favor. They put their futures on the line - to keep you
from driving into a wall.
CHAPTER 9. THE HEALTH AND
WELFARE CRASH
The fact that life used to end quite abruptly
but now has us crying out "are we there yet?" is one reason a discipline
known as financial gerontology has emerged. The pioneer in this field
is a social scientist named Neal E. Cutler, who believes that financial
advisers need to be retrained to have a better grasp on clients' ever-extending
life spans.
CHAPTER 10. COVERING YOUR
ASSETS
The Number is a delicate web of risks, some
of which are within your control, some not, and some sort of are. The
risks that are sort of within your control are how long you live and
whether you live healthfully. Have you flossed your teeth today?
CHAPTER 11. ADVICE SQUAD CONFIDENTIAL
The Number keeps many people awake nights, with
only the tree frogs to provide solace, yet most of them refuse to seek
professional help. They think they can work it out themselves. Are they
kidding themselves?
CHAPTER 12. NIGHT SWEATS
There's a giant and unruly industry out there
ready to provide you with support and counsel. While this country may
have a shortage of nurses, special ed teachers, and tool and die makers,
it certainly does not lack for asset managers, financial advisers, accountants,
insurance agents, securities brokers, bankers, and trust officers, all
eager to make your acquaintance.
PART THREE: FINDING IT
CHAPTER 13. DOWNSHIFTING WITH
JUNG
Is the Number about money, or is the number
about meaning, fulfillment, and life's true calling?
CHAPTER 14. SUN SPOTS
Del Webb was to the American way of retirement
what Ray Kroc was to the hamburger patty. He was the one who, for better
or worse, hammered together a new American Dream designed expressly,
as it turned out, for midlife downshifters.
CHAPTER 15. A NEEDLEMAN IN
THE HAYSTACK
Is the Number about downshifting, or is the
Number about something more profound? Are places like Sun City the true
destination or just a step in the right direction? Is the Number about
where we want to be, or who we want to be?
CHAPTER 16. DEEP BREATHING
Just because you may know how to ladder a bond
portfolio doesn't mean you can now skip happily out of Number darkness
into bright Number sunshine.
CHAPTER 17. BOTTOM LINES
Even if there are no universal truths about
the Number, there are some bottom lines. A bottom line doesn't reach
as far or as wide as a universal truth; think of it as a universal truth
you get on sale.
APPENDIX: THE NUMBER, QUICK AND DIRTY
Here's a formula you can use to calculate what
your Number really is - especially if you know what truly matters.