For a daily dose of retirement news…

Click over to Yahoo’s ”Focus on Retirement“ page, which posts a new article focusing on retirement issues every day.  The page includes the full archives, so you can read past articles as well.  For additional retirement planning help, Yahoo’s Retirement page also includes How-to Guides and Calculators.

SmartMoney.com

A joint venture between Dow Jones & Company, Inc. and Hearst SM Partnership, SmartMoney.com provides information and tools for individual investors, including news stories, information on mutual funds and stocks, analyst commentaries, and articles.  It also includes a Retirement Planning section, and a Personal Finance section which includes a set of 15 basic articles on investing called SmartMoney University.  While a few premium services on the site require a fee, most of the content is available for free.

Retirement Calculator for People 50-70

Another calculator to try:

The Department of Labor has a great online calculator for people who are age 50 to 70, with worksheets for entering pre and post-retirement assets and savings, and very complete instructions.  It’s a conservative calculator–you can’t estimate a rate of return on your assets above 7%, for example–but it’s more detailed than many others.

The calculator is part of a booklet on Retirement Planning from the Dept. of Labor; we’ll have copies available at our next Club meeting.

Looking for more investment information?

Forbes.com has an A-Z list of recommended “Best of the Web” investment websites–everything from Alternative Investing to Young Investors.  For each site, Forbes provides a link, a summary review, and lists some of the best and worst features. 

Welcome to Leisureville!

For a different take on retirement, check out the new book Leisureville: Adventures in America’s Retirement Utopias, which chronicles the author’s experiences and impressions after he moves to the Villages in Florida, the world’s largest gated retirement community.  You can check the availability of the book in our network here (there’s currently a waiting list for it).

The Boston Globe recently interviewed the author, Andrew Blechman, about his bookand the implications of age-segregated living.  You can read the interview here.

Presidential candidates and Social Security

Robin Young of WBUR radio’s “Here and Now” had a discussion today with journalist Roger Lowenstein about what the presidential candidates are saying about Social Security and Medicare.  Roger Lowenstein is the author of While America Aged: How Pension Debts Ruined General Motors, Stopped the NYC Subways, Bankrupted San Diego, and Loom as the Next Financial Crisis.

You can listen to their conversation here, and check on the availability of the book here.  In order to listen to the show, you must use the Real Audio player, available for free download if you need it at www.real.com.  Newton owns two copies of the book; if they are checked out you may request them from another Minuteman library.

At our September meeting (Sept. 17) a speaker from the Social Security Administration will explore this topic with us.