by Randy Kirk Jane Kirk ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 17, 2015
Brief, common-sense survival tips for a more secure future.
Awards & Accolades
Our Verdict
GET IT
A husband and wife offer their easy-to-read collection of practical suggestions for an affordable retirement.
When Randy and Jane Kirk (he worked for the IRS for 25 years, and her 22-year career was with a large insurance firm) decided to retire in their 50s, they soon discovered their nest egg couldn’t sustain their lifestyle. They also found that many retirees are in even worse shape. Citing a 2013 study authored by Nari Rhee, a retirement specialist at the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education, the Kirks contend that in 2010, one-third of Americans ages 55 to 64 had no savings to finance their retirement. Not wanting to go back to work full time, the frugal twosome found ways to manage their underfunded retirement. Their smorgasbord of quick, friendly advice ranges from the startling, like living in a vehicle until better economic times, to the familiar, such as how to save money by cutting out bad habits like smoking. In this slim edition, the authors emphasize ways to reduce expenses (maybe it’s time to downsize to a smaller, cheaper house) and produce more income (investing in the stock market or starting a very small business, like mowing lawns). There are also day-to-day ideas for cutting financial corners; e.g., buy inexpensive eyeglasses through online companies like Zenni Optical. Doctors and hospitals will sometimes reduce the prices of medical procedures, say the Kirks, and they note the website Healthcare Blue Book to help determine fair market price. The authors propose beginning with a written personal assessment in which all retirement hopes and dreams are detailed and using a written budget with the help of an envelope system; for example, a predetermined amount of cash for groceries would be kept in one envelope, and no more is to be spent on groceries that week. Those who are truly broke may already be living many of these ideas; e.g., cooking cheaper meals from scratch instead of eating out. But for readers who are beginning to panic about their retirement years, the Kirks’ warm advice is comforting and practical.
Brief, common-sense survival tips for a more secure future.Pub Date: Feb. 17, 2015
ISBN: 978-0990943808
Page Count: 90
Publisher: Frugal Frog Enterprises, LLC
Review Posted Online: April 10, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Share your opinion of this book
by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
Share your opinion of this book
More by Ludwig Bemelmans
BOOK REVIEW
developed by Ludwig Bemelmans ; illustrated by Steven Salerno
BOOK REVIEW
by Ludwig Bemelmans ; illustrated by Steven Salerno
BOOK REVIEW
by Charlayne Hunter-Gault ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1992
From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-17563-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
Share your opinion of this book
More by Charlayne Hunter-Gault
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.