What To Do When I Get Stupid: A Radically Safe Approach to a Difficult Financial Era

For a variety of reasons, our financial ability tends to peak around the age of 53 and declines thereafter. This decline becomes far more consequential as we enter our 60s, 70s and 80s and try to make good financial decisions in an era of greater financial complexity, instability and change. As our mental acuity diminishes, we become more vulnerable to those who offer us "help." We all know older friends and relatives who have been victimized by those they have come to trust.

"What to Do When I Get Stupid" documents when, how and why our financial powers weaken with age and offers ways in which we can significantly reduce the risks associated with this inevitability. It presents "A Radically Safe Approach to a Difficult Financial Era," (the book's subtitle) which shows that there is a way to make sure that we have enough money coming in to last through our lives. Many of the book's suggestions are things you have never heard before, in part because there is little no profitability in them for financial service providers.

Here are a few of the concepts we can learn from the book:

•What problems we cause for ourselves when our financial abilities decline

•How we can we live on little more than our Social Security income

•Why a fully-paid, age-in-place home may be our best investment

•How a simple annuity can guarantee us a cash flow of 7% for life, even at today's low rates

•Why long-term care insurance may be a waste of money

•When and how we can use a reverse mortgage to provide lifetime income

•Why a balanced portfolio may be wrong for us

•Whether financial advisors are worth their cut of our earnings

•That there is a way to make sure we have money until the end