Plan Your Prosperity

An essential roadmap to financial security and independence in retirement

In the newly revised second edition of Plan Your Prosperity: The Only Retirement Guide You’ll Ever Need, Starting Now—Whether You’re 22, 52 or 82, renowned investment adviser Ken Fisher delivers a practical and insightful new discussion of why all your investing should be done with an eye toward retirement.

You’ll learn how to think about investing for retirement and learn to understand key concepts like time horizons, return expectations, and cash flow needs. You’ll discover how to select an appropriate retirement benchmark and how to determine how much you need to save each year to achieve your retirement goal.

The book also includes:

• A comprehensive, workable strategy to develop your own retirement investing plan or work with a professional to do that while avoiding common pitfalls
• Techniques for avoiding harmful myths about retirement saving and investing, like complex and expensive annuities and other products
• Hands-on strategies for figuring out how much income you need to ensure the maintenance of your lifestyle in retirement

Perfect for working people at any stage of their career who are interested in working toward financial security and independence, Plan Your Prosperity is a must-read roadmap to successful investing and saving.

Preface vii

Acknowledgments xi

Chapter 1: What? Me? Retire? 1

The Imagined Dichotomy 3

Two Goals and Some Non-Goals 4

Definitions and a Pencil 9

Start Immediately. Now. Right Away 13

Plan Your Prosperity 14

Chapter 2: My Goals Are What? 17

Why Is This So Hard? 20

Your Investing Goals, Simply 24

Potential Pitfall: Capital Preservation and Growth 27

Inflation’s Insidious Impact 30

Three-and-a-Half Percent, Compounded 35

Chapter 3: The Secret Code—Asset Allocation or Benchmark? 39

Benchmark: A Road Map and Measuring Stick 42

Picking a Benchmark 45

The Big Decision: Asset Allocation 46

Potential Pitfall: Age Doesn’t Equal Asset Allocation 50

Benchmark vs. Asset Allocation: What’s the Difference? 52

Chapter 4: Time Horizon—Longer Than You Think 63

Potential Pitfall: Ignoring Opportunity Cost 66

Time Horizon: What Is It? 68

Time Horizon and Benchmark 72

Chapter 5: What’s in a Return? 79

Growth Defined 83

The Past as a Guide? 87

Gordon Moore and Endless Innovation 97

Potential Pitfall: Unrealistic Expectations 100

Chapter 6: Getting That Cash Flow 105

Potential Pitfall: The All High-Dividend Portfolio 108

How Much Do You Need? 111

Monte Carlo: Not Just a Casino 116

Let’s Get Simulating 117

Chapter 7: Can I Get There? 129

How Much Do You Have? 132

A Savings Plan 135

Chapter 8: Putting It All Together 143

To Benchmark or Not to Benchmark 146

State Your Goals 148

Know Where You Are 149

Picking a Sound Benchmark 150

Finding Professional Help 153

Avoid Being a Fraud Victim 155

And You’re Off! 156

Appendix A: All Hail the Mighty Dow 157

Appendix B: Cash Flow vs. Expenses 167

Appendix C: Expense Categories 173

Appendix D: Personal Balance Sheet 177

Appendix E: Tax-Efficient Retirement Income Strategies 181

Notes 187

About the Authors 191

Index 193

KEN FISHER is Founder, Executive Chairman, and Co-Chief Investment Officer of Fisher Investments, a $290-plus billion (as of September 30, 2024) money management firm serving high-net-worth investors and institutions globally. He wrote Forbes’ prestigious “Portfolio Strategy” column monthly for over 32 years, making him the magazine’s longest continuously running columnist. He now writes monthly, native-language columns for over 25 major outlets worldwide, including The New York Post, the UK’s Daily Telegraph and Canada’s Globe and Mail. He is the author of 11 books on investing and personal finance and is a New York Times bestselling author.

Think you’re too young to start thinking about retirement? Or that it’s too late for you? Or that “retirement” investing is different from “normal” investing? Think again.

Whether you’re in retirement, just getting ready to retire now or in 5, 10 or 40 years, the newly revised and updated second edition of Plan Your Prosperity arms you with information, expert guidance and tools to help you invest smarter your whole life. In it, bestselling finance author Ken Fisher explains why, for all practical purposes and for most investors, all investing should be done with an eye toward retirement—and beyond.

You’ll find proven techniques you can use to avoid harmful myths about retirement saving and investing that sink all-too-many investors and jeopardize their prosperity. You’ll also get hands-on strategies to help you simplify and state your goals, uncover how much money you may need to finance them and learn how to build a portfolio that increases the likelihood you reach your goals.

In their place, Ken provides straightforward principles to help you increase the odds you achieve your long-term investing goals, like:

• How to think correctly about investing time horizon
• The difference between income and cash flow
• How to better figure how much cash flow you need and if your portfolio can provide it
• How to figure how much to save each year to achieve retirement goals
• What pitfalls to avoid
• And more . . .

Plan Your Prosperity delivers the essential tools you need at any step in your investing journey. Whether you are retired now, retiring soon or returning in the far, far future. It’s a must-read roadmap to successful investing and saving.

An essential blueprint for investors seeking financial security and independence

The second edition of Plan Your Prosperity: The Only Retirement Guide You’ll Ever Need, Starting Now—Whether You’re 22, 52 or 82, by bestselling author and veteran adviser Ken Fisher, shares the crucial elements in crafting a retirement investing approach for your entire lifetime.

You’ll learn how to think about your time horizon, expected returns, cash flows, and other key metrics to help you build a plan that targets your desired lifestyle in retirement. You’ll also discover techniques to help you start building a retirement plan that increases the likelihood you live the retirement you want. And, it offers succinct advice in navigating the disorienting myths and pitfalls many fall prey to along their investing journey.

Plan Your Prosperity shows you how to answer common and critical questions about how to approach investing in your own life: What are your investment goals? What mix of stocks, bonds and other securities should you use? How can you estimate whether your savings are sufficient? How much money will you need when you retire?

Fisher walks you through a step-by-step method designed to solve these—and other—dilemmas. Plan Your Prosperity is a must-read for retirement investors at every stage of life.