"Accelerating Your Retirement" - A "Life and Money" article.

Written by:

Frank Sisco, CPA, PFS, 30 Mill Road, New Rochelle, NY 10804

Home office - 914.740.4422, Cell - 914.589.1013; Email – ideasmoney@aol.com

www.LifeAndMoney.com

(Word count =890 word count plus 64 words for About the Author)

If you're one of the over 40 million Americans in their fifties, you should consider launching an invigorating plan to retire early, real early like next year or the year after.   Why? If you are like many baby boomers in their fifties, you are being squeezed financially.   Both your income and net worth have taken big hits from a variety of sources, such as college expenses of your children, sky-high medical insurance premiums, underperforming investments, declining home values, losing jobs due to downsizing or changes in technology, declining income from small business, high medical expenses for your family or your parents. What's a boomer to do?   A bold plan to amass a sizeable nest egg rapidly could buy you time and freedom.

Some pundits predict we will have to postpone retirement and work into our seventies, especially if the Social Security system runs aground.   As a lover of work and of productive endeavors, I was seldom troubled by the prospect of working until I dropped.   Then, lying in a hospital bed in December after a false-alarm heart attack, I reassessed everything, sort of like the "Bucket List" movie.   I realized that I was really a servant to a system that was sapping my strength in the name of "free enterprise" and "capitalism."   My time and money was always squeezed and the future landscape appeared as problematic.   Even though I was in my own financial services business, and the owner of other sideline businesses, I was still just clocking time each day in return for a wage to get through the month and its bills.   Also, my financial house could not weather the severe storm of a major business loss or a catastrophic illness hitting my family, despite the long-term care insurance policies I arranged several years ago.    I could not free myself for enough time to visit my aging and ailing parents as often as they needed.   I couldn't spend sufficient time with my wife and daughter.   Get-togethers with friends were a luxury.   Vacations and holidays were always rushed and interrupted.   I never had time to finish my latest song, or publish my drafted book, take my internet video business to the next level, or commercialize my inventions.  

With each wake or wedding, I promised myself to change but it took the almost-epiphanies from those three contemplative days in the hospital coupled with a serious family disagreement that got me to declare that I needed to be in significantly more control of my time.   Translated, I figured I needed at least a $3 million nest egg to generate enough income in order break free of the bondage of trading my life's precious hours for dollars.   In those moments of brainstorming, I took stock of my skills, experience, and connections and I decided I would build a valuable investment business within 12 months that had at least $100 million under management that would generate at least $1million in revenue annually.   I confirmed with experts that such a book of business would be able to be sold for about $3 million to another investment firm.   With that goal, I proceeded to make it happen.   Within days, I developed a unique proprietary method of selecting certain investments that had the potential of significantly outperforming the S&P 500 and would attract investors.   I reallocated my time away from marginal work, even pro bono work, to more lucrative work. I wrote fewer poems and essays and more memos to clients.   Practically eliminated television.   I retrofitted my conveniently-located house to accommodate a large home office with a client waiting room and space for employees, not only to save rental expense but also to allow me the flexibility of working through the night if need be. I've reached out to key existing clients and new prospects, explaining my plans and that I will still be able to provide financial advice to them even after the investment business is sold because I will remain a consultant and their personal financial advisor.   I have enrolled other financial professionals to transition other parts of my business like insurance and taxes.   I've gotten better about letting off some steam and giving rewards to myself through dancing and parties.   

I can taste the extra time I soon will have once I achieve my personal "liquidity event" and cash in. I plan to complete the many creative projects I've started but haven't completed because of a lack of time, like my writing, my music, and my inventions.   Most importantly, I have shared these objectives with my parents and wife and daughter, that in less than a year I will go from being pressed for time to being very available for them.   For my parents, I'll be better able to help them with personal assistance, household chores, arranging and monitoring caregivers, taking them out, and spending more time just talking and being together.   For my daughter, I will be able to spend more time listening and helping her adjust to changes as she grows in adulthood.   For my wife, we can start fresh, each and every new day in any place we choose, doing anything we want. And the unexpected bonus of setting my plan in action is that I'm doing some of this already.   Next month's column will describe how to develop an action plan to accelerate retirement in your life.

About the author:

Frank Sisco is a CPA, Personal Financial Specialist and video journalist (see www.VideoVoom.com) who writes on topics related to life and money.   You can contact Frank by email at ideasmoney@aol.com or by phone at 914.589.1013 in order to express your opinion about this article or to obtain copies of prior articles.   Frank, his wife and daughter reside in New Rochelle, NY.