Excerpts from upcoming Money Vikings book, The Gen X Guide to True Wealth
Our time is now!
Hey fellow Gen X, we need to talk. I know, we don’t want to talk about things. We just want to work hard, enjoy our friends and family and do the best we can in life our own unique way. We are getting older and we need to take action now for the second half of our lives.
This is crunch time for building a life of True Wealth and preparing for what society calls the retirement years. Like everything Gen X has done, we will do it our own independent way. Gen-X for many years was a largely misunderstood and ignored generation in mass media. We all heard plenty about the Baby Boomers and the Millenials, but often times the smaller Gen X was left out of the conversation. And frankly, Gen X probably liked it that way. The attitude is kind of like, leave me alone, I am fine over here just doing my thing…Besides, many of us were latchkey kids that in a strange way raised ourselves. Our parents were both working and doing the best they could to navigate the world.
Reality Bites!
On a macro level, Gen-X is not looking good in terms of building wealth and retirement preparation. We are looking like a bunch of beat up grunge band members after a night of too much drinking. That is why this book is critical now. We need to help each other out and get things on track for the second half of our human existence.
The average Gen-X household has only $40k in retirement savings. This is woefully unprepared for a group of people between the ages of 43-58. We should ideally be sitting on plump six figure retirement accounts, have an affordable mortgage and have debt under control. But this is not the picture of the average Gen-X. BUT, here is the good news. Now is the time to take essential action, develop and execute a plan that will set us up for success. This book will walk you through the essential steps to build wealth on your terms.
THIS IS ABOUT YOUR UNIQUE TRUE WEALTH JOURNEY AND I WILL NOT BE USING CARTOON VERSIONS OF WEALTH PROMULGATED BY THE MEDIA CIRCUS. You can use the information and tools in this book to develop your own True Wealth life.
What I mean by True Wealth
True Wealth is a term we coined on our blog over many years of studying wealthy folks. We noticed and realized something. True Wealth at a certain point has very little to do with a specific figure in an investment account and has much more to do with 3 essential elements. These are a certain mastery over your personal finances (money), managing our health & well being, and the social connections, projects, art we can enjoy in this life. This is why we have had 3 sections to our YouTube channel, one on investing/personal finance, health, and collectibles/art/community.
No Comparing
In a way I hate sharing stupid statistics like average retirement savings for entire generations because one size does not fit all when developing and executing your wealth plan. Your wealth plan will be unique to you. As it should be, we are Gen X, we want to be our own independent thing.
Why this book now?
The goal of this book is to act as a blueprint to create your unique life of True Wealth. You see, Gen X is known to question the rules, think independently, work hard and be committed. Therefore we will most likely redefine the rules of retirement.
Gen-X is typically categorized as those babies born between 1965-1980. Now do some quick math. This means that Gen-X as of the time of this book is about 43-58 years old. This is an absolute critical time in our lives to get our personal finances in order and build the life we want in the second half. We are quite literally the next generation to start entering those early retirement years.
One more thing about this particular book, it is written for you the Gen-Xer in mind at this moment. This probably will not be a best seller and make all my dreams come true, but I am Gen-X so I will just shrug my shoulders and move on. This book is a practical how to guide for developing your True Wealth life. I have read hundreds of personal finance books over the years, but most of them have not been written by Gen-X. Most are either Baby Boomers or Millenials. I love my Baby Boomer ad Millenial brothers and sisters, but the fact remains many of them had different experiences than those of us in the Gen-X cohort.
Most Gen X not prepared (an end to shame or guilt)
Generally Gen X is in what is sometimes called a “sandwich generation.” At this age many of us are still raising children and some of us are also caring for parents or grandparents. Just doing one of these things is a huge investment of time, money and resources. For many, this is distracting and taking resources away from their own retirement preparedness. This is one of several reasons Gen-X will most likely redefine the retirement years.
This book is about looking forward. Think of all the awesome experience and things you have done in life to make it this far. And let’s not kid ourselves, life ain’t always been easy. So let go of the past and any feelings of what we could have or “should” have done. Let’s focus on what we can do now to build a strong present and secure future.
Will I ever “retire”?
I suspect traditional retirement is going to look different for Gen-X for many reasons, and this is actually a great thing. First, Gen-X just likes to do things their own way. Second, technology and advancements in medicine are going to open up new opportunities for Gen-X. We will have tools available to retire, work and live differently than previous generations at this stage.
Your Unique True Wealth Journey
Something we have discussed for years on our blog and YouTube channel is this concept of True Wealth. True Wealth is essentially your unique definition of wealth that combines finances, health and connections into what we call True Wealth. This concept rejects a stereotypical or cartoon version of wealth and requires us to develop a model and definition that is unique to us.
Sample Chapters & Topics
You see, everyone is different and comes from different backgrounds and accumulates different life experiences and opportunities. What worked for one person may not be the right path for another. Our methods and models account for this.
- The Gen-X experience
- 5 ways Gen-X will redefine “retirement”
- Unique challenges for Gen-X to overcome (The American Nightmare?)
- Develop Your Unique Gen-X Wealth Plan
- The Big 3 for Gen X
- Master your money psychology?
- 5 Ways to Make Money Work for You
- Aligning w/ Your Highest Values
- Health & Family
- Thrive in Creative Mode
- Get The Personal Finance Basics Done, Then Rock Out (budgeting, investing, housing, living trusts, insurance, etc.)
- How will you make the world better?
