READER REVIEWS:

Average reader rating (from Amazon.com):

Fabulous, November 30, 2000. Reviewer: A reader from Severna Park, MD USA, courtesy Amazon.com. "This book was absolutly fabulous. It helped me to understand why I must contribute to my 401k. The author seems to have great insight. I would recomend this book to anyone it is easy to read and insightful."

See the light, November 29, 2000. Reviewer: Clay Dietz from Maryland, courtesy Amazon.com. "I read this book and found myself seeing the big picture for the first time. I had no idea that planning for my retirement was so important, and the sooner I get started the better. I always directed part of my salary to my 401k and treated it like a savings account. I never realized that my investment strategy made such a significant difference in my future. Do your self the biggest favor possible. READ THIS BOOK!"

Entertaining and comprehensible, November 29, 2000. Reviewer: A reader from Chester, Maryland, courtesy Amazon.com. "Mr. Scarborough's book helped me to finally understand the basics of managing my 401(k) plan. I haven't been able to get any help from my company, and this book put everything into perspective for me. I now understand why I'm investing through a 401(k) and how to spread out my investments to reduce the chance I'll lose all my money. I also liked his explanation of what a 401(k) is and my company's role in managing it."

Real information, November 29, 2000. Reviewer: Ginny Gillotti from Evanston, IL. "Being a 401(K) administrator, I am relieved to finally see a book available to the public that is down to earth on a topic so many people have a hard time understanding. Mike Scarborough took a confusing and frustrating topic and put it into real life scenarios that allows the common man or woman to understand what they need to do to live a comfortable retirement. I highly recommend this book to any one of any age who has a disire to live a comfortable retirement."

Timely information, November 28, 2000. Reviewer: A 12-year old reader from Severna Park, MD. "I am 23. The book is excellent to say the least. I don't think it could have come at a better time. It seems like a lot of people have 401k and we have all been getting advice from the self-proclaimed investment guru in the office next to us at work. This is the first book I have ever come across that gives the type of advice that is useful to individual investors that are looking for some type of direction for their money. Scarborough helps the reader realize that an investment plan and a retirement plan is just as important as saving itself."

A fantastic guide for 401k planning!, November 28, 2000. Reviewer: Shortiie from Farmington Hills, Michigan, courtesy Amazon.com. "Fundamental step-by-step instructions for investing in your future! For a novice looking for essential advice on how to save, plan, and manage, this is the book for you! This contains simple yet detailed information on WHY people should save (i.e. college expenses and how to buy that nice BIG yacht AFTER you pay off the children's undergrad, grad, and doctorate tuition:)) and HOW to save (tax-deferred retirement accounts) with an emphasis on TIME; the key is to start saving now to get the most for your hard earned money. Not only does this guide help in your 401k management, but it also gives humorous little antecdotes to bring what many would call a confusing and complex topic into layman's terms. A great read!"

Great book on retirement planning, October 26, 2000. Reviewer: Mr. Data from Abingdon, MD. "This is a great book for those who really don't have any idea on how to take their retirement accounts and really put them to work for themselves. It provides world-wise tips on planning for retirement, what retirement really is (or should be), and how to set yourself up properly. All this, and witty at the same time - all in all, a great read!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

J. Michael Scarborough, President and CEO of The Scarborough Group, Inc., was born in Petersburg, Virginia in1953. He earned his M.B.A. in finance from Baldwin-Wallace College and his Bachelor of Science degree in finance from Salisbury State University. He has taught personal finance and economics courses at Johns Hopkins University and Salisbury State University.

Mike travels the country giving educational seminars about their 401(k) plans to clients and employees of Fortune 500 companies. He is also a frequent speaker on the topic at industry conferences and on CNBC. His comments have appeared in numerous national publications, including Business Week, Financial Planning Magazine, Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine, Money Magazine, Pensions & Investments, The Chicago Tribune, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times.

He currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity and Foundation. He is also active on the Board of Trustees at Salisbury State University, where he recently created an endowment establishing the Scarborough Student Leadership Center.

The Scarborough Group, Inc., is a pioneer in the 401(k) advice industry. It offers education, advice, and allocation management to help people maximize the value of their retirement plans. The firm currently manages more than $2 billion in retirement assets and is one of the nation's largest providers of allocation management for 401(k) plan participants.

THE AUTHOR TALKS ABOUT HIS BOOK....

Coming soon.

At one of my retirement seminars recently, a man in the sixth row timidly stood up, nervously looked around, and asked, "Mr. Scarborough, my name is Stan. What exactly is retirement?" The woman in the first row -- his company's Human Resources Director -- rolled her eyes and shook her head in disbelief. The man sitting next to Stan stared up at him with a "what-an-idiot" frown on his face. Low-level snickering flowed across the room like "the wave" at a ballgame.

After the room quieted down, and after Stan crawled back out from under his chair where he had taken refuge from the scorn his fellow employees, I looked at him and said, "Stan, my man, you are the true hero of this seminar. You had the guts to ask the question that almost no one here knows the answer to yet. I am so glad you asked -- and they should be, too." Stan grinned.

We give retirement planning seminars all the time, and it never ceases to amaze me how few people know what they mean when they start talking retirement. Try to pin them down, and they start talking ages-55, 65, whenever. Or they start counting years- five years from now, twenty years from now, or "as soon as I can," that sort of thing. Even then, they're talking in generalities. They're not talking about their retirement, they're talking about "well, you know, just retirement."

So here's something you need to understand right off the bat. Retirement is not an age. Retirement is not an event. Retirement is a phase you go through after you quit working where you've been working full-time for however many years. And with any luck, it's a phase you'll spend 20 or 30 or more years enjoying. Enjoying, that is, if you figure out how to pay for it before you get there. That's what this book is all about: how to maximize the advantages of your company-sponsored 401(k) program so that you can retire and live the rest of your life enjoying a high standard of living, no matter how long you live. Nobody buys a book like this for the joy of learning abstract or complex economic or financial theories. I assume you are here to learn how to achieve financial security so that you can retire when you want to and maintain a comfortable standard of living for the rest of your life. For that reason, there are not two words of economic or financial theory in this book.

This book starts with basic retirement planning at the "Stan" level, then gives you the information and tools you need to maximize the power of your 401(k) retirement plan. In a clear, simple, and step-by-step manner, I will cover all the major aspects of financial planning for your retirement, how to evaluate and optimize the financial power of your 401(k), and how to best work with a financial planner to achieve your goals. Finally, I'll show you how to make the most effective use of your assets once you do retire. When working with my clients, I have no place for the "cookie-cutter approach" to retirement planning. You won't get any of that in this book, either. Everything I'll give you will enable you to do what's best for yourself and your loved ones -- not for some faceless group of people that happen to be your age or follow your profession.

In these pages you'll find some ideas and recommendations that seem to fly in the face of "conventional wisdom" about retirement planning. Some do -- with good reason: a fair amount of retirement planning information passed off as "conventional wisdom" is either obsolete (much of it dragged along, useful or not, from two and three generations ago) or was fundamentally flawed in the first place. If so, I'll tell you so, and tell you why the information here is better.

Everything you'll find here is practical knowledge you can immediately put into use. All of it comes directly from my own training as a financial and investment counselor, from the insights I've gained helping my clients grow their retirement portfolios, and from the experience of the senior staff, securities specialists, and investment planners at The Scarborough Group, Inc. I hope you find it useful.

J. Michael Scarborough