HARRIET EDLESON
Author/Journalist
12 Ways to Retire on Less: Planning an Affordable Future
12 Ways to Retire on Less
If you think you may want to retire within the next five years, my book can help you plan, think about the kind of life you want, where you want to live, and who you want to spend time with during those years. Whether you are 50, 60 or 70, or younger, it’s never too late to reflect on where you’ve been, where you are, and where you want to go. — Harriet Edleson
“A compelling read”
— Margaret Wylde, CEO, ProMatura Group, LLC
| BOOK TALKS Monday, Feb. 27, 2023, 2 pm, “Romance Scams Hit High,” talk and book signing, Friendship Village Center, Village of Friendship Heights, 4433 South Park Ave., Chevy Chase, MD 20815 – (301) 656-2797. Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2023 Podcast featuring Harriet Edleson, Accidentally by Design, LISTEN: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-accidentally-by-design-100758367/ Monday, Oct. 24, 2022, 7 pm, “Retiring: Your Best Years Yet,” book signing, Friendship Village Center, Village of Friendship Heights, 4433 South Park Ave., Chevy Chase, MD 20815 – (301) 656-2797. Tuesday, July 12, 2022, 10:30 am, guest speaker and book signing, “Taking to the Skies Again: Traveling in Today’s World,” Friendship Village Center, Village of Friendship Heights, 4433 South Park Ave., Chevy Chase, MD 20815 – (301) 656-2797. If you’re considering travel this summer yet find yourself wavering, it’s not surprising. Overall, you want to keep yourself and your loved ones safe. Yet, for some, travel is a big part of life. If you wait for the perfect time, you may never go. You can postpone for only so long. Instead, during a pandemic that ebbs and flows, aim to mitigate risk. Wednesday, Nov. 3, 5:30-6:30 pm, Guest Speaker at Georgetown Village, virtual, LISTEN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qa48mBlPmuU&t=1508s Wednesday, Oct. 5, Guest on Retire with Purpose Podcast with Casey Weade  Monday, Aug. 2, 2021, Retirement Wisdom Podcast with executive coach/retirement coach Joe Casey, LISTEN: https://podcasts.apple.com/pa/podcast/ways-to-retire-on-less-harriet-edleson/id1360304023?i=1000530751585&l=en Tuesday, July 20, 2021, 7 p.m., BOOK SIGNING Friendship Village Center, Village of Friendship Heights, 4433 South Park Avenue, Chevy Chase, MD 20815 – (301) 656-2797 Thursday, July 22, 2021, 9 a.m. Podcast Retirement Wisdom with Joe Casey Retirementwisdom.com Thursday, June 10, 2021 Thursday 6/ 10 Your Retirement Dream: How Planning Can Make It Come True with Harriet Edleson, author and journalist. Retirement! Have you imagined you’d be lounging on a beach in the south of France or Bethany Beach? Riding a luxury train through the White Towns of Southern Spain? Cruising the Danube on a luxury riverboat? Or, taking courses with others like yourself? Serving on a nonprofit board? Buying a vacation home in the mountains? Spending more time with the ones you love? Relocating to be near your grandchildren? Whether you are already retired or thinking of retiring in the next five or 10 years, planning will make the journey more enjoyable and secure! What do you really want to do? Think about all the resources you have or will have at a time when you may no longer be working. Will you have a pension or will you be relying on Social Security and savings? Whatever your situation, the best way forward is knowledge. Learn about the optimal time for claiming your Social Security retirement benefits and how to decide whether downsizing is for you, since housing can be the largest expense in retirement. Harriet Edleson is an expert on baby boomer retirement strategies. She has written the Retiring feature for The New York Times and the Where We Live feature for The Washington Post. A former writer/editor/producer for AARP where she specialized in Social Security, she now writes for Kiplinger’s Retirement Report. Her forthcoming book, 12 Ways to Retire on Less: Planning an Affordable Future is to be published in May 2021 by Rowman & Littlefield next year. Visit her website at https://www.howtoretireonless.com.Registration Link: www.littlefallsvillage.org/RetireOnLess |
· Dec 8, 2021 ·
Review By Joe Casey, Retirement Wisdom
REVIEW:
Because of my work as a retirement coach, I read more books on retirement than most people. I found 12 Ways to Retire on Less to be a breath of fresh air. It’s a well-written, no-nonsense, comprehensive guide to planning for retirement in today’s challenging environment.
Planning for retirement today entails navigating a great deal of uncertainty and anxiety. Journalist Harriet Edleson highlights the practical considerations for the big decisions you’ll face in planning for retirement, including when to retire or work longer; budgeting; generating income in retirement; when to file for Social Security; moving or staying in a place; housing options in later life, and the often-overlooked issue of transportation. It’s a pragmatic, reality-check on retirement today that shows how there are still ways to make it work.
The strength of the book is on how to make savvy moves to optimize your resources in funding what for many people promises to be a longer retirement than previous generations enjoyed. However, my favorite parts of the book were when Edleson goes beyond those core financial topics to emphasize the importance of keeping the dreams you have for retirement in focus. In several chapters, she explores viewing retirement as an adventure and writes of discovering a new purpose and honing in on what you really want to do in this phase of life, including envisioning your dream locations and where you want to travel. Starting with this vision of retirement as an adventure sets the stage for then finding smart ways to fund your vision.
I recommend this book as a valuable resource that will help you reframe how you’re thinking of your next chapters and retire smarter.
Listen to our conversation with Harriet Edleson here
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New works by Bethesda-area writers
BY CARALEE ADAMS |SEPTEMBER 20, 2021 | 8:31 AM
After years of writing about retirement for magazines and newspapers, Bethesda journalist Harriet Edleson pulled together the advice she’s learned in 12 Ways to Retire on Less: Planning an Affordable Future (Rowman & Littlefield, May 2021). She encourages readers to create a budget, consider the best time to claim Social Security, and carefully review housing options—which will likely be their biggest expense. “People are fearful of running out of money in retirement,” says Edleson, who is a regular contributor to Marketwatch.com and The Washington Post. “If you plan, then you will be more likely to know what you have coming in, how much you are spending, how much you are earning, what is your guaranteed income, and you can sleep better.”
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