When I joined Ritholtz Wealth Management in 2015 I was the 7th employee and first one who would be working remotely.
We now have more than 30 employees and half of us work outside of our headquarters in New York City.
So when everything shut down in March the disruption to our business was relatively minor.
But we did take some steps to increase communication within the firm since the face-to-face interactions we did have were put on hold.
We now hold two weekly Zoom meetings for all employees (in addition to some smaller team Zooms and calls).
One of those Zoom meetings involves our CEO Josh Brown talking with a different employee each week to discuss what they’re working on and certain areas of their job some colleagues may not be aware of.
This has been a great way to understand how we can be more collaborative as a team.
Early in the spring, Josh spoke with Dan LaRosa who helps run our 401(k) and corporate retirement plan division. Dan made a comment that the content we produce as a firm can be helpful to the employees of these retirement plans but it’s rare for most of these savers to regularly read financial blogs or listen to financial podcasts.
He reminded us that most of these savers are regular people who just need some help with the basics.
The entire reason I started this website in the first place was to help normal people get a better handle on the markets and personal finance so I reached out to see how I could help. Dan told me it would be useful to have some sort of guide to walk people through the most important things they need to understand to better prepare them for the journey to financial independence.
So we began formulating an outline of what those most important things would be.
My colleagues Tony and Dina Isola have a passion for helping teachers manage their money and work with 403(b) retirement plans. And Dan McConlogue has been working with 401(k) plans and families for a few decades. I asked for their input as well because they are the ones who are interacting with retirement savers on a regular basis.
With their help and expertise, I started writing a short book about the most impactful things someone needs to understand when saving for retirement.
I spent the next few months researching, writing and asking for feedback, both from other colleagues as well as everyday retirement savers. The product of this work is my new book Everything You Need to Know About Saving For Retirement.
It covers:
- How to get started with your retirement savings
- Why saving is more important than investing
- How much you should save for retirement
- How to spend your money on the things you care about
- Where to invest your money
- How to become a 401(k) millionaire
- How to make up for a late start to saving and retirement planning
- How much money you need to retire
- How to think about Social Security
- The 3 biggest things you need to know about investing
- My 20 rules of personal finance and much more
The book is certainly not for those advanced in the finance field or someone who has their entire financial house in order. But everyone knows someone who could use some help getting their finances in order or just getting started saving for retirement.
This is a book for:
- Young people
- Teachers (there’s an entire chapter dedicated to this group)
- People who are behind on their retirement savings
- People who don’t want to spend so much time on their finances
- People who need some guidance with their personal finances
- People who are overwhelmed by the prospect of saving and investing for retirement
- People who don’t know if they have enough saved up to retire
The book is only 115 pages and that includes a cartoon drawn specifically for each chapter. The goal was to make an accessible book, written in plain English that could help people get the big things right when it comes to their finances.
I love paying attention to the markets and figuring out certain ways to optimize my finances but not everyone is as interested in this stuff as I am.
This book was written for those people that would like to improve their financial station in life but don’t want to spend every waking minute obsessing about money.
Please feel free to share this with anyone you think would be interested or needs some direction when it comes to saving and investing for retirement.
You can pick up a copy of the book in paperback or ebook format at Amazon or Barnes and Noble.
