Two Paperbacks
Retirement Catch-Up Bundle
(8 reviews)One book explains the arithmetic. The other is where you do it.
Two paperbacks for the fifty-something who ran the numbers and stopped.
- ✓The book — nineteen chapters, every lever priced in dollars
- ✓The workbook — your gap on one spread, and a plan you sign
“Extremely helpful read for anyone thinking about retirement” — Erik, reader · Aug 2026
Free US shipping · Printed to order · Arrives ~ 2 weeks
$52.98 bought separately. Buy the bundle and save $6.99
For the one who ran the numbers and stopped
Reading the arithmetic and doing it are two different afternoons.
You can finish a good retirement book, agree with every page of it, and still not know your own number. The reasoning is the part that's hard to write and easy to nod at. The arithmetic is the part nobody does, because doing it means finding a statement, admitting to a balance, and writing a date down.
So this is both halves. The book works out why the benchmark you looked up was never yours, what your months will actually cost, and what a claiming date, a mortgage with fourteen years left or a coverage bridge to 65 costs you in dollars a month. The workbook is where your own figures go: five parts, forty-six pages, every one of them a writing surface, narrowing to one gap on a single facing spread with a worked example printed opposite. Bought apart, most people read one and never open the other.
Retirement Catch-Up
Watch: the number that was never yours
Why the salary-multiple benchmark was never yours — and the smaller question that is.
- ✓ The two figures that replace the million-dollar number
- ✓ Why five years still changes the answer, even if saving more won't
- ✓ Captioned · 24 sec · watch right here
Why the pair
The book gives you the reasoning. Only the workbook gives you a number.
Every figure worked in the book belongs to a household that isn't yours — five of them, carried all the way through, which is what makes the reasoning checkable instead of asserted. None of them is you. The workbook is the one place your own spending, your own SSA estimate, your own debt end-dates and your own coverage dates meet on a page, and the whole of it narrows to a single gap figure you can say out loud. Together they land the reasoning and the arithmetic in the same week, which is the only week most people do either.
Every figure in the book carries the year it was verifiedWhat's inside
Two books, and what each one does
Retirement Catch-Up: When you're behind · 204 pages
What "behind" actually means
- The number that isn't your answer
- Take stock in an afternoon
- What your money produces each month
Your gap, and its cause
- A gap has a cause, not a verdict
- Social Security changes the catch-up math
- Time is the multiplier
The coverage constraint
- The health insurance bridge to 65
- More in: saving and earning at the end
- Lower the cost of what you have to fund
The two biggest levers
- Housing, and its two separate effects
- Debt changes the monthly math
- What you already have, and what it can do
Putting them together
- Earned income that isn't a second career
- Five catch-up plans, worked
- How moderate changes compound
When the numbers still don't work
- When you genuinely can't retire yet
- What not to do because you're panicking
- Real help, and your next twelve months
Retirement Catch-Up Workbook · 46 pages
Where you stand today
- What an ordinary month costs you now
- What changes when the paycheck stops
- Every account, at roughly today's balance
The facts you have to look up
- Your SSA figures, off your own statement
- Debt, and the date each payment ends
- Coverage between your last day and 65
Your gap, on one facing spread
- What a retirement month will cost
- What genuinely counts as paying for it
- The same spread worked as an example
The three levers you test
- Six places a plan can move, marked
- One page per lever you decide to test
- What the three together would change
What still needs an answer
- Fourteen red flags, no research needed
- A worry turned into a real question
- An answer log, with where proof sits
The plan you sign
- Eight actions, each with its next step
- The same eight across twelve months
- One page, dated, with a review date
What readers say about these books
“Review of Retirement Catch-Up”
This book was extremely helpful in understanding the ins and outs for what to do in the event you feel that you need to “catch-up” financially before you retire. There are so many factors to weigh when making these decisions, and this book provides examples and comparisons to make those decisions. Extremely helpful read for anyone thinking about retirement and concerned they may not have all of the financial plans worked out!
Erik, reader of Retirement Catch-Up · Aug 2026
“Good materials included”
If you are looking for something to help prepare you for retirement this book is wonderful. The forms are great information and gives you a true picture of where you are financially if you needed to retire or where you will be when you plan to retire. I recommend this book
Becky, reader of Retirement Catch-Up Workbook · Sep 2026
“An Encouraging & Practical Retirement Guide for Your 50s”
Retirement Catch-Up: A Practical Plan for Your 50s When You... is a reassuring and useful resource for anyone who has reached their 50s and realized their retirement savings may not be where they hoped they would be. What I appreciate most is the book's practical, forward-looking approach. Instead of dwelling on financial decisions that cannot be changed, it focuses on what readers can do now to improve their position. That perspective makes retirement planning feel less overwhelming and much more achievable. The book encourages readers to evaluate their finances realistically, establish priorities, make intentional decisions, and maximize the remaining working years. It also reinforces an important message: starting later does not mean giving up. There can still be meaningful opportunities to increase savings, reduce expenses and debt, reconsider retirement expectations, and create a more sustainable financial plan. I also appreciated that the subject is approached in a way that can benefit people who may feel intimidated or embarrassed about being behind. The emphasis is on developing a plan and taking consistent action rather than comparing yourself with where someone else believes you should be financially. This is an especially valuable resource for people in their 50s who want a clearer retirement strategy, including those who are rebuilding after financial setbacks or simply getting serious about retirement planning later in life. A motivating and practical guide that turns “I should have started sooner” into “What can I do starting today?” Highly recommended for anyone ready to take greater control of their financial future.
Shelanda, reader of Retirement Catch-Up · Aug 2026
“A Practical Plan for Your 50s When You Haven't Saved Enough”
A million dollars, ten times your salary — is not a target you can act on. It was never yours. What decides whether you retire is smaller, and far more useful: what your months will cost, and what your savings and your benefits actually produce against that cost. The difference between those two figures is your gap, and a gap has a cause. A claiming date. A mortgage with fourteen years left to run. Coverage you have to buy before 65. A car payment that ends while you are still working, which is not the improvement it looks like. This book builds the comparison, names the cause, and prices each lever in dollars a month.
Joann, reader of Retirement Catch-Up · Aug 2026
“Create a practical plan for your 50s as you head towards retirement”
Super informative but it can also be overwhelming with the amount of information! Read it slowly, take notes and go back and re-read if needed. If you think you are nearing retirement age though and feel like you haven't been saving enough or aren't adequately prepared then read this book and see where you can make adjustments in your life and start a game plan. The book gives examples and comparisons and also outlines a ton of resources and a practical plan for moving forward.
reader of Retirement Catch-Up · Aug 2026
Show all 8 reviewsHide reviews
“Good resource material”
This isn't a last-minute oh let's save and go from there. This actually gives you a practical plan with resources and everything else that you will need that you can even start implementing earlier than in your 50s. This also gives you five plans to catch up on things that you could be missing or just need to know and need to do to prevent things happening in the future.
Bree, reader of Retirement Catch-Up · Aug 2026
“Not what I expected but still loads of info”
Not what I expected from this book. Was hoping to get more of a chart type method of playing catch-up. LOADS of info and examples of dollars and how to approach playing the catch-up up game!! A bit overwhelming for me but I know that this information is valuable to a lot of folks. Although it isn't for me, I'm 250% positive it will be better used by others!! Kudos to the author for such a compilation and examples. There is a lot in this book.
Amy, reader of Retirement Catch-Up · Aug 2026
“Great workbook for soon to be retirees!”
As a person that has to write down everything and see it on paper, this is an excellent workbook! I will be utilizing this in the near future! One thing I had a question on is in the expenses it says family support. That could be more detailed as I was thinking is that if we borrow money to family or is that like child support or alimony.
Mary, reader of Retirement Catch-Up Workbook · Sep 2026
Good to know
Common questions
What's actually in the bundle?
Both paperbacks, shipped together in one parcel: Retirement Catch-Up (204 pages, 5.5×8.5) and the Retirement Catch-Up Workbook (46 pages, 8.5×11 fill-in). They are the same editions sold separately — nothing is abridged or reprinted for the pair.
Which one do I start with?
The workbook, if you want a number this weekend. Its first part asks only for figures you already have or can pull off one SSA statement, and it gets you to a rough monthly gap on page 14. Start with the book instead if the thing stopping you is that you don't believe the exercise is worth doing — chapters 1 to 4 are the argument for why the benchmark you looked up answered a different question.
Do I need the book to use the workbook?
No. Every workbook page tells you what to write and why it matters, and the one page that needs judgement prints a worked example opposite. The book is where the reasoning lives — why a later claiming date isn't free, why housing has two separate effects, what the coverage bridge to 65 actually costs — which is what you want once a lever test turns out to be the interesting one.
Why buy the pair instead of one?
Because they fail in opposite ways on their own. A book you agree with and never act on changes nothing; a workbook you fill in without the reasoning gives you a number and no idea which lever to pull. The pair costs less than the two bought apart and arrives in one parcel.
How fast does it arrive?
Both books are printed to order and posted together in one parcel. Free US shipping, and delivery runs about two weeks. There is no rush tier, because the printer sets that schedule and not us — we would rather give you the real date than sell you a faster one we don't control.
Can my spouse and I share these?
The book, easily. The workbook's spending, coverage and gap pages are written for a household rather than a person, with separate lines where your figures differ — the two Social Security estimates, the two work-stop dates. If you each want your own lever tests and your own signed plan, buy a second workbook.
Is there a digital version of either?
Not in this bundle, and not for the workbook at all. Every workbook page is a writing surface and a fill-in book doesn't reflow onto a screen, so it is print-only and will stay that way. This listing is the two paperbacks.
Is this financial advice?
No. Both are educational: the book explains the arithmetic and routes every rule to the agency that holds it, and the workbook organises your own figures and your own questions. Neither names a fund, a product or a provider. Limits and thresholds reset annually, so check any figure against the current year before you act on it.
Ready when you are
$45.99Both paperbacks · shipped together
$52.98 bought separately. Buy the bundle and save $6.99
Free US shipping · Printed to order · Arrives ~ 2 weeks
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Get the plan and the pages together
The reasoning that prices every lever, and the forty-six pages where your own numbers become one gap figure and a plan you sign. Two paperbacks, one parcel, free US shipping. A few evenings at the kitchen table and it's written down.
Free US shipping · Printed to order · Arrives ~ 2 weeks
