Chapter 14 Midlife Accumulators. People mature in several ways, including physically, emotionally, professionally, and financially. Accumulating and maintaining wealth during our 40s and 50s requires a different attitude and a different set of financial tools than it did during our 20s and 30s. | Chapter 14 Midlife Accumulators One of the many things that nobody ever tells you about middle age is that it s such a nice change from being young. Dorothy Canfield Fisher P eople mature in several ways including physically emotionally professionally and financially. Accumulating and maintaining wealth during our 40s and 50s requires a different attitude and a different set of financial tools than it did during our 20s and 30s. Sometime in midlife we realize that we are mortal and that there are limits to our abilities. We become more conservative and set in our ways. We also change the way we manage our wealth as retirement draws closer. As we learned in Chapter 13 Early Savers are busy establishing careers and forming families. Reaching permanent financial security is only a vague image in the distant future. As a result the planning aids that guide wealth accumulation center around learning to save on a regular basis and investing that money at an acceptable level of risk. By midlife managing wealth takes a new direction. By this time retirement accounts should have adequate assets in them Copyirght 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use. 222 Midlife Accumulators and savings habits should be well refined. Careers and family life are generally well established at this point and we have formed a lifestyle that is comfortable and affordable. It is now time to refine our ideas of a secure retirement. Armed with genuine content about our lifestyle we begin to envision what retirement will be like and where the money must come from to fund that vision. By midlife saving for retirement is no longer an option it is a necessity. If you have not started a regular saving program procrastination is no longer a luxury that you can afford. The realization that you must save in midlife is coupled with the realization that investment returns are also becoming increasingly important. As the assets in retirement accounts grow the investment returns .
