Review: You Don't Have to Drive an Uber in Retirement: How to Maintain Your Lifestyle Without Getting a Job or Cutting Corners

You Don't Have to Drive an Uber in Retirement: How to Maintain Your Lifestyle Without Getting a Job or Cutting Corners by Marc Lichtenfeld
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I’m getting to the age and having the right mindset for this book to capture my attention. The author plays on the nagging suspicion that fully retiring from the workforce and living off of savings might be too risky, and alternative forms of income or cost savings might be useful. The author provides a number of ideas for income generation and cost savings that are relatively current. Topics covered by the author regarding income are: long-term dividend stock investing, covered calls and puts, personal and peer-to-peer lending, buying tax liens, working for Uber and the like as a contractor, optimizing social security, and funding health savings accounts. The cost saving ideas are: optimizing Medicare, medical tourism, pharmacy discount programs, rarely used tax deductions, using discount brokers, buying cheaper cars, and travel discounts and points programs. There’s also a chapter on small ideas for cost savings which includes discounted gift cards, rewards purchasing sites, and cheap or free classes. The author concludes with a few pages on why annuities and life insurance besides term tend to be bad ideas.

I really liked the mix of topics. But understand that this is a short book, and most ideas are discussed with only a few pages of text. This is more of a tickler – if you find good ideas look into them yourself. Also, although this is quite current, I noticed a few sections were not. Some of the points programs described rules that changed years ago, for instance. I also noticed that in the authors paring down of content, he often spent time talking about the pros of an idea and disregarded the cons. For instance, buying gift cards from third parties is rife with fraud, including at least one of the services he recommends. I suspect the author hasn’t actually tried every service he touts here. Again, caveat emptor. Another glossing over of cons was his discussion of reinvested dividends. His quick economic comparison to other savings options failed to take into account required taxes on dividends, but did take taxes into account in the alternatives. Taxes made appearances only when it furthered the basic tactics he was suggesting. Keep an open mind that additional research will be required.

Overall, I liked the mix of topics, hitting income and costs with many different ideas. You don’t often see, say, covered calls mentioned in the same book as buying discounted gift cards and peer-to-peer lending sites. The author hit on a good collection of what I’d call “retirement money hacks” that didn’t include some of the traditional ideas, like selling stuff on eBay. And I appreciated the understanding he provided about driving for Uber, despite the title. This is written in a conversational style, and is easy to read. But I would recommend if you find an idea you want to incorporate into your financial life that’s more involving than, say, signing up for MyPoints, do additional research.


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