Your #1 goal should be to have money for retirement. We all want the finer things in life; we are a society obsessed with instant gratification. However, all of your decisions (the financial ones, at least) should be primarily based on both your future and your retirement.

With this as an overall theme, this book will walk you down the road to retirement, providing you with options and choices that are most appropriate for your particular situation. No one said the road would be easy, but do not worry, we will face those speed bumps head on, and we will do it together.

The best time to start planning for retirement is now! A significant change in the last 20 years is the position of global investments. In 1990, 75 percent of investment opportunities were in the United States and 25 percent in other places around the world. Currently, it is almost the opposite with about 75 percent of the opportunities outside the United States.

The U.S. is still the #1 financial leader in the world. Japan is #2. In 2010, China overtook Germany to become #3. We need to recognize that other countries are maturing and we want to make sure you have considered all investment opportunities that exist.

By the end of this book, you will be comfortable enough to make your own decisions regarding your investments. If you are not, it will allow you to be comfortable asking any financial consultant the right questions.

This book is about giving you new tools. So, we brought in Morningstar® to enable you to evaluate your options and introduced a global perspective to help you maximize potential returns. Think of it this way: if this were your favorite coffee blend (with all the right ingredients), you would want a refill.

Dee Mosier joined the financial services industry over 30 years ago, when few women were in that field. She has a great perspective because she has been there as new products and investment vehicles evolved; and she has experienced many economic downturns, as well as growth periods. Her clients have been individuals who regularly save in retirement plans or individual portfolios with varying net worths, as well as corporate and government clients. She has also provided consulting services to a wide range of government clients for retirement plans and deferred compensation plans.

Today, she is combining her many years of experience in the financial services industry with her passion for helping people learn how to take control of their financial future. Most importantly, she wants to provide her readers with the tools to make their own decisions.

Financial Straight Talk is a multifaceted program consisting of: a television show, short online videos, an E-Zine, and this book. Her goal is to utilize each of these tools to present financial information on investing and saving in everyday language with a nontraditional twist.

One of her proudest accomplishments was teaching an upper division investment class at Columbia College, Chicago. Previously, the course was taught only once a year. The class never had more than ten students. When she began teaching the class, it became a sell-out, with 50 students each semester. Now, why would these students sign up for an elective class with an instructor who had a reputation as one of the toughest instructors in the Management Department? The demographic of students was definitely a healthy mix of females and males from diverse racial backgrounds. She has always believed it was because she empowered her students; she helped them to become everything they were destined to be, informed investors.