This website is designed primarily for you, the media, as a media kit to provide additional story insights, data, facts, examples and links related to the concepts presented in Wealth Odyssey (public comments next; both public and media, see bottom).

Wealth Odyssey is real life - this website shows you that journey.

Wealth is not measured by how much you spend, but by how much you have not spent. Wealth is sustainable with or without an income. Wealthy is not being rich (rich is having more than one needs to sustain their living standards). Even those with a modest income can be wealthy when they are able to sustain their unique standard of living (not working in retirement). How is this done? “Wealth Odyssey” explains how. It explains the relationship between income, net worth and other financial topics; and how knowing this helps with the unknowns of the markets, economy, Social Security and pensions.

You can use the information here to expand on various story angles and develop story approaches to financial planning topical issues, especially as they relate to retirement: Pensions, Social Security, and Retirement Savings Plans.

Links are included for your further research as desired. The information here addresses these fundamental questions:

1) Is there a specific need fulfilled by Wealth Odyssey?

2) Is there an improvement by Wealth Odyssey over what already exists in written material?

3) Are the methodologies in Wealth Odyssey easier to use than what already exists?

4) When can I retire? How much do I need to retire? In other words, how can I make today's living standard sustainable?

5) How can a wealth-based (net worth) point of view make personal finance easier than the current income-based point of view? In other words, how does it all fit together?

6) How can a person simplify Retirement Income Distribution methods or Retirement Income Distribution calculations?

7) Withdrawal rates for retirement income are age-based ... which rate do you use?

... and many more questions one could possibly ask - all made simpler through the lens by defining what wealth really is.

Answers to the above questions and concepts from Wealth Odyssey are discussed in the "Author Interviews" link on the left navigation bar of any page.

For the Public - A Learning Place

The public interested in a deeper understanding of Wealth Odyssey's concepts may also find this website helpful. You can understand the issues reported by the media by comprehending Wealth Odyssey. Thereafter, you can use the various tools and resources found on the internet with better understanding what they do for you and your circumstances. This is for everybody - not just the "wealthy" - since you'll soon discover that everybody needs to be "wealthy" in order to retire today. Wealth Odyssey helps you redefine what "wealthy" means.

The fundamental theme of the opus is to help you begin to think in terms of Sustainable Living. How do you sustain your current standard of individual living? What are the risks to your living standards? How do you go about developing the financial plan that addresses your goals and these issues?

Wealth Odyssey helps you understand the difference between concerns, goals, planning, solutions, products and services. Wealth Odyssey also helps you see the difference between income or budgeting management and wealth management. This website integrates with the book, to help you better understand the concepts in the book, through a discussion of those key concepts using different words and examples. The thought is that you will learn and understand through the use of two different mediums, the book and this website.

Wealth Odyssey is a proud participant in the Jump$tart Coalition. Many young people fail in the management of their first consumer credit experience, establish bad financial management habits, and stumble through their lives learning by trial and error. The Coalition's direct objective is to encourage curriculum enrichment to ensure that basic personal financial management skills are attained during the K-12 educational experience. The wheels of education do not need to be reinvented, they simply require balance. (from their website).

To further assist you in your personal journey or odyssey of finance, my public website www.BetterFinancialEducation.com is where educational material, tools and calculators, and additional links to many educational and government websites are provided.

How do you take in all the information available today and put it all together into a meaningful way to solve your individual concerns? The ability to "Zoom in" and "Zoom out" to get a better focus on what you are trying to visualize in your "Mental Model" is what Wealth Odyssey is all about. People want to zoom in for more detail and often get lost. Zooming out for a larger picture is also important so that you can recognize what is unique about your situation in order to better discern and prioritize your own concerns and goals. The concepts of zooming and mental models are discussed in "The Power of Impossible Thinking. Transform the business of your life and the life of your business," a work by Wharton School Publishing.

For All

You will find links to valuable research and useful websites throughout this website. They are provided to help you explore the issues and the thought currently going into those issues.

This website is about the important first step before investing. People invest without first understanding the purpose of the money. Without purpose, the investment takes on the insidious goal of just making money.

People must establish a purpose, which is called their destination in “Wealth Odyssey.” Once they have established the purpose, then the manner of investment becomes clearer and they can make better decisions about those assets.

Other works about investing fit in once people understand where they need to start and where they are trying to go.

Investing is not planning; investing is the putting the plan into action. The best example of this perception is retirement planning. People are investing in retirement accounts but have little idea how much they need, nor when they can retire. Experience has shown me people the reason why is that they are missing the plan. People are also not understanding what a safe withdrawal rate for retirement is.

Wealth is not being rich. Wealth applies to everyone, even those with modest incomes. Wealth means you can arrive at your destinations because you have accumulated the resources to do so. What about budgeting? Click here.

Thank you for your interest in Wealth Odyssey, an approach to simplify financial planning and how financial planning fits into real life with all its elements.

Your feedback is welcome and relevant input will be posted on this website in the applicable section. You may communicate with me through the email link above.

Wealth Odyssey has had an offer to translate into Indonesian. Other languages may be possible in the future.

Information contained on this website is general in nature and should not be applied to any specific situation without consideration of all the concepts discussed in Wealth Odyssey. This website does not provide "investment" planning or advice. It does lay out a framework for "financial" planning - the purpose of money - where a clearer picture may unfold as to how you should approach investing. Consultation with a local credentialed advisor is suggested for those who find they may need additional assistance (see "Author Interviews", Q&A #20, 21 & 22).

 

Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Inc. owns the certification marks CFP^® CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ and    in the U.S., which it awards to individuals who successfully complete the CFP Board's initial and ongoing certification requirements. The Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards is a professional regulatory organization based in the United States of America that fosters professional standards in personal financial planning so that the public has access to and benefits from competent and ethical financial planning.

Please note that this site is non-commercial and will not advertise any product or service on the site. The site's purpose is to enhance the thoughts contained in Wealth Odyssey and provide further content and support to those thoughts through links to other sites with an educational focus.