Boomers! TV Series Inspires Our New Book

by Nancy Fernandez Mills

Greetings! This blog comes to you after a long hiatus. Mark and I have been off line for several months, but we've been busy, writing a new book for fellow mid-lifers. Boomers! Funding Your Future in an Age of Uncertainty will be in bookstores on August 7th - that's according to our publisher, Kaplan Publishing. And you'll be able to order it on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Booksense.

Why would you buy it? We think of it as a handbook for Baby Boomers as they think about, dream about and plan for the next phase of life. We divided the book into sections that touch on the major themes of our fifties and sixties: Planning (starts with You Are Your Best Asset!); Work (includes Workplace Revolution, Blueprint for Career Change and Time to Be Your Own Boss); Home (The Next Boomer Housing Boom and It's Your Move!); Money Boomer Guide to the Basics of Investing, Making the Most of Your 401K, Living on Less, Retirement Savings Toolbox); Health (Bridging the Health Care Gap, Health Care for the Long Haul); and, Family and Community (Four Generations and An Encore Performance).

While we included some of the wonderful experts and inspiring Boomers whom we met during the production of our Boomers television series, we also wanted to get practical here. Mark, who is a Certified Financial Planner and very practical guy, offers advice you can follow and tools to use. He makes it very easy to understand, even for non-financial people like me! For example, there's a section on answering that oh-so-important investment question: What percentage of my investments should be in stocks, bonds or cash? Mark gives four scenarios: one asset allocation for those who want to retire in 5 years, another if you have 10 years to go, another for 15 years and one for those with 20 years. All come complete with pie chart and a suggested portfolio.

We'll be offering you some advice and stories from the book here on a regular basis. We invite your questions and comments and hope you'll check back often, now that our Boomer Blog is back!