This rings true. EDIT: so does this -- -- the best way to prepare for not being able to work anymore is simply to own outright a piece of land, preferably with a dwelling of some sort on it, for which you are beholden to nobody. Land may lose value, it may gain value, but regardless of all that it will in most circumstances retain the capacity to fulfill one of our basic needs. EDIT EDIT: I cast around on the financial advice blog he linked to and I found this -- Your Debt Is an Emergency. Yes. I don't know what else to say. This sounds like I wrote it. I don't think I've ever found anything online that I agreed with so completely. Excellent post. Chalk me converted.Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad (worth reading along with its sequels), proposes that rich people get rich by building their net income generating assets column (i.e. things that generate positive cash flow each month, not "buy and pray" investments like most stocks or houses), and that middle class people fail to get rich because instead of buying or building net income generating assets, they buy loss-making assets (e.g. by buying a bigger house with larger mortgage payments, or a new car with monthly payments) that drag them down.
A similar approach seems sensible today: instead of saving piles of cash that can depreciate rapidly or even be lost when the stock market turns sour and the bank or government turns around and slashes your retirement fund, create net income generating assets that will generate the wealth you will need to live on.