This page sets forth links to articles referring to Rob Bennett’s book Passion Saving: The Path to Plentiful Free Time and Soul-Satisfying Work, to his daily Financial Freedom Blog, to the rise of The New School of Safe Withdrawal Rate Analysis (founded and led by Rob), and to Rob’s other writings on the Passion Saving approach to money management.
MarketWatch.com, The Number? New Thinking on Nest-Egg Withdrawals in Retirement
Juicy Excerpt: It’s likely the stock and bond markets will return far less than the historical averages over the next few years. And that could spell trouble for retirees who spend more than 3% from their investment accounts earmarked for retirement spending. [This article was written at my suggestion — it publicizes our community’s breakthrough SWR findings of recent years.]
Woman’s Day, Hey, Big Spender: 20 Things to Do With $20 (May 9, 2006)
Juicy Excerpt: Rob Bennett, author of Passion Saving: The Path to Plentiful Free Time and Soul-Satisfying Work, suggests giving your teen $20 and this challenge: Check out The Complete Tightwad Gazette, by Amy Dacyczyn, from the library, then spend the money using one of the book’s techniques.
3M Stemwinder, Smart Savers Create Emergency Funds
Juicy Excerpt: He added that, because the home mortgage is the largest fixed expense for most people, those who have paid off their mortgages or who live in less expensive homes do not need as large an emergency fund.
Medill News Service, Break the Bank or Break Up? With the Right Tools, Couples Can Survive Fiscal Differences
Juicy Excerpt: The first date went well, but when Bennett asked her out again, she agreed on one condition: that they go out in her luxury car instead of his jalopy.
Medill News Service, Things to Know Before You Shack Up
Juicy Excerpt: If, for example, one person has to move to another city, makes more money than the other, or loses a job, uncertainty and resentment may jeopardize the relationship. “If you’re going to [move in together], do it for some other reason,” Bennett said.
Loudoun Business, Loudouners Make the Move: Jumping Jobs, Careers, Is the New Norm. (March 2006)
Juicy Excerpt: “As long as you need money, you’re always going to be compromising. You’re always going to be settling,” he said.
Monster.com, Budget Your 2006 Bonus (Link No Longer Available)
Juicy Excerpt: “A worker should put the money into a personal ‘freedom fund,’ where it can finance some future move up the success ladder,” says Rob Bennett, author of Passion Saving: The Path to Plentiful Free Time and Soul-Satisfying Work.
RetireEarlyHomePage.com, Book Review–Passion Saving
Juicy Excerpt: Mr. Bennett evidences an unusual skill….You’ll have to buy a copy….Extraordinary….A massive heap of crap.
PRWeb.com, Retirement Planning Tools Give Dangerous Advice
Juicy Excerpt: Rob Bennett, founder of the Financial Freedom Community (a group of Internet discussion boards), today announced the launch of an effort to bring the community’s findings to the attention of retirees before the flaws in the retirement planning tools cause millions of busted retirements.
BankRate.com, When Does It Make Sense to Relocate?
Juicy Excerpt: Rob Bennett, the author of Passion Saving: The Path to Plentiful Free Time and Soul-Satisfying Work, says usually “it’s not a good idea to make a move just because one particular job position sounds promising. If the new area offers [employment] opportunities outside the job being taken, it makes sense to make the move.”
Glamour, Seven Reasons It’s Great to Be a Woman at Work Now (March 2006 Issue)
Juicy Excerpt: Today, intuition is as essential as e-mail. “Many ‘male’ skills, the kinds of things learned by doing calculations or by planning, are now being performed by software programs,” says Rob Bennett, author of Passion Saving: The Path to Plentiful Free Time and Soul-Satisfying Work. ‘The ‘female’ skills are the ones employers most need to hire humans to perform.”
MarketWatch.com, Better Ways to Use Your $5 a Week Lottery Allotment
Juicy Excerpt: Challenging experts around the country for the best use of $260 per year yielded some interesting responses. Rob Bennett of Purcellville, Va., is the author of the book Passion Saving: The Path to Plentiful Free Time and Soul-Satisfying Work and the Financial Freedom Blog at PassionSaving.com. Bennett suggests you invest the $260 on a budget. But you’ll like his budgeting technique.
The Hartford Courant, Taking the Leap: They Quit Their Day Jobs to Follow Their Dreams
Juicy Excerpt: Rob Bennett of Washington, D.C., interviewed hundreds of middle-class workers for his book Passion Saving: The Path to Plentiful Free Time and Soul-Satisfying Work. He writes in an e-mail, “I sometimes get the feeling that there is no one today who does not carry around in the back of his or her head at least one ‘What if I tried?’ scenario for dramatic career change.”
BoomerMarketAdvisor.com, As the Retirement Focus Shifts to the Distribution Phase, Advisors Need a New Set of Tools
Juicy Excerpt: “Many of the retirement planning tools now in use suffer from a grave flaw,” says Rob Bennett, the author of the Financial Freedom Blog, a daily column on PassionSaving.com. “They fail to adjust for the valuation level that applies on the start date of retirement.”
The Financial Freedom Blog, The Wall Street Journal Endorses Valuation-Adjusted SWRs (See archives for December 2005)
Juicy Excerpt: The scores of Financial Freedom Community members who helped us develop our safe withdrawal rate findings of recent years should all take a bow. The investing insights that we have been talking about since May 2002 are going mainstream.
I write a guest blog entry at the Clever Dude blog entitled A New Approach to “Staying the Course.” I say: “If you, like me, believe that it is possible for prices to be too high, then you should not be sticking with the same stock allocation in your effort to Stay the Course. For investors like us, changes in prices are causing the course to always be in motion. Risks are greater at times of high prices and long-term returns are lower.”
CapitalSpectator.com publishes an article backing the investing ideas explored at this site entitled Back to the Future Again — The Financial Literature Now Favors Active Asset Allocation, But It’s Still Risky. The article states that: “Securities markets appear to be at least partially predictable after all.
CapitalSpectator.com publishes an article supporting our idea that Value Investing and Modern Portfolio Theory make a powerful combination entitled Rethinking Modern Portfolio Theory. The article states that: “Although academics are latecomers to the party, the fact that they’ve arrived only adds more credibility to what Graham taught: valuation matters.”
The Get Rich/Get Right blog links to the article “Getting Over Your Fear of Money” in the “The Turned-On Budget” section of the site.
I post a Letter to the Editor at the Early-Retirement-Planning-Insights.com site entitled More Regarding the International Dimension. I say: “There is reason to believe that Robert Shiller (author of “Irrational Exuberance”) believes that it is possible at least to some extent to avoid the risks of overvaluation in the U.S. market by moving funds to non-U.S. markets.”