What comes to mind when you think "retirement planning"? For most people, retirement planning elicits thoughts of 401K's, IRA's, mutual funds, or other types of investments. When you think of retirement planning, you probably are reminded of company benefits meetings where you were asked what your level of risk tolerance is. Does this question scare you? Retirement Planning doesn't have to be risky. They tell you that the longer you have until retirement, the more risky you can be with your money as if losing a bunch of money is any less painful when you are younger. I don't know about you, but I prefer to minimize risk, or eliminate it at every stage of life, not just at the end of my life.

The experts are only telling you that retirement planning is a form of gambling and should never be viewed as a sure thing. Encouragement of higher risk taking at a younger age only indicates that you have more time to rebound when your retirement account falters. That's like saying it is better to be in a horrific automobile accident when you are 20. Then you can spend the next ten years recovering fully, and by time you are 30, you might be able to enjoy your life again. Let's face it, do you really want to lose all of your hard earned money in a market downturn and spend the next several years just getting back to where you started? Did you know that for every 50% of value your portfolio loses, you have to gain 100% just to break even? Going up is twice as hard as coming down. So, why lose?

If you are smart, you will diminish, or avoid risk altogether; not by putting your money in super-safe annuities, or t-bills; but by learning about money and finances. You can minimize or eliminate risk with every morsel of knowledge you gain and apply to your retirement planning. Risk can be diminished or avoided with an educated approach to retirement planning. Risk can also be avoided if you change the rules by which you play the retirement game. Why continue to run in the rat race and save for a retirement that is a long way off, when you could accelerate your retirement by learning to build wealth now, and retire early?

There are several great resources out there to teach you wealth building and solid retirement planning. There are several great ways to put more money aside, and grow the money that you already have faster than you thought possible. My advice for building wealth and retiring early is simple. Pick one, or several income and investment formulas that work well for you, learn as much as you can about them, plan to save a portion of every increase, and follow through with your plan. It doesn't have to be complicated. Too many people are subscribing to retirement planning that is far too complicated because the feel that retirement planning has to be complicated. Did you know that the world's greatest investors don't have complicated plans? They know and execute simple plans with exactness and perfection. Warren Buffet's plan is very simple. It consists of 2 rules: #1) Don't lose money, and #2) Don't forget rule number 1! Think rich, and retire early. You owe it to yourself.