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Tavis: We continue our 'Road to Wealth' series tonight with a look at the challenges facing the Baby Boom generation. Steve Weisman is a Boston-based attorney and syndicated radio host who specializes in estate planning and retirement. In his new book, "Boomer or Bust: Your Financial Guide to Retirement, Health Care, Medicare and Long-term Care", he talks about the challenges facing this generation he calls the sandwich generation. From Boston, Steve, nice to have you on the program.

Steve Weisman: It's good to be with you.

Tavis: Let me start with that, the sandwich generation. How did you come up with that one?

Weisman: Well, you know, we're kind of sandwiched, we being Baby Boomers, between our parents, the so-called greatest generation, and our kids. It's kind of interesting because, well, as Baby Boomers, we always thought it was about us. But all of a sudden, we're caught in the middle between taking care of our parents and our kids are moving home.

So all of a sudden, people who thought they were going to be inheriting money in the greatest distribution of wealth in our country's history are finding our parents, the Baby Boomers' parents, are living longer and we're taking care of them. We're dealing with their finances while, at the same time, we're taking care of kids that we thought might have left, but came home. So it's all a bit - if it's not overwhelming, maybe there should be a new word of whelming, but that's what we're stuck with.

Tavis: (Laughter) How gloomy then is the picture with regard to retirement for your generation?

Weisman: Well, you know, a lot of us just didn't plan. It wasn't that we planned to fail, but we failed to plan. That is a real issue. However, it's never too late. Uncle Sam is trying to help. There are new products. There are IRAs and Roth 401ks and different things to help us out if we'll take those disciplined steps to do some saving.

Tavis: You started just now to answer the question I want to ask. Let me just go full speed ahead here. If one is going to create a comprehensive retirement package, whatever that might mean, what are the ingredients that have to be in that portfolio?

Weisman: You know, the start is discipline. You have to discipline yourself to figure out what it is you're going to need and be realistic and where are you going to get that? Then you find the ways of saving and it really can be very, very difficult because there's an array of products, many of which are not really appropriate for many people.

The fees are our foes. So it's not a matter of how much you earn. It's how much you keep. So we'll read about the latest stock and that's really good and people put their money in there, or the latest mutual funds and people put their money in there, and then they find there are marketing fees, there are management fees, there are taxes added on there. So there are simpler ways. Index funds, for instance, with very, very low fees will allow your money to grow.

So you want to look at maximizing the tax-free growth when you can, a Roth IRA or a 401k, and then you start looking at other kinds of savings. But when you look at those savings, you really look at what's going to get you the most bang for the buck. It's not what you make. It's what you keep.

Tavis: So, social security. You can't talk about this generation without raising this issue of SSI. Question number one, is it broken? And question number two, when and how can one best use it if you're a part of this generation?

Weisman: You know, I'm very optimistic as far as social security, for a lot of reasons. First of all, it's like Mark Twain. The predictions of its death are greatly exaggerated. Because in point of fact, even if nothing were done to fix it, it's good until 2042. Right now, there's a $1.6 trillion dollar surplus and a lot of the projections that are negative in regard to social security are based upon things that, well, are a little bit spurious.

That being said, you have to look at what you're going to make in social security. You have to say, well, there may be some drawbacks there, but there are also ways to look at it. Do you want to take early social security at age sixty-two, or do you want to bet you're going to live longer and even postpone taking your social security? Or maybe you don't have enough years in. Because social security is based on your top thirty-five years of earnings. So if you've got about thirty-three years of earnings, it may make sense for you to work those extra couple of years to add up that social security. But social security is going to be with us.

Tavis: Let's talk about mortgages. First regular mortgages and then we'll talk about reverse mortgages.

Weisman: I think the mortgages that people have now, a lot of the issue comes up of should you pay off that mortgage? In point of fact, for most younger people, no, you don't want to pay off that mortgage. That mortgage is worth something to you as a tax deduction. It lowers your taxes. That's good. You take the money that you save and you have that working for you in something that is going to be working for you tax-deferred or tax-free. So you take that money that you'd pay off the mortgage because it isn't going to do anything for you and you put that into an IRA, into a Roth IRA, into a 401k.

But for the older person who's heading into retirement, you don't want to carry that debt. The interest deduction isn't probably worth as much to you now, so by paying off that mortgage, it's almost investing at a nice secure rate.

Tavis: What about reverse mortgages?

Weisman: You know, home is where the heart is. Home is also where the money is. This is again one of those things that sometimes sounds a little bit too good to be true and maybe is. The whole idea behind reverse mortgages is that it's a good thing for people who are house-rich and cash-poor and need that money to be able to stay in their home. But for many people, it's not necessarily a good idea.

It's not a way to just take money out and invest that money because, first of all, like compound interest, interest on interest. This is how the IRS gets so much money when you owe interest on interest. It works against you in a reverse mortgage because, with a reverse mortgage, the lender is loaning you the money, but you don't have to pay it back until you move out or you pass away. So what happens is, the interest grows and grows and grows.

Also what you're looking at is perhaps not having that house as a legacy. But the fine print - the devil is in the details and there's very little fine about fine print. You'll find a lot of that with reverse mortgages. You'll find some that are shared appreciation or shared equity, which means that not only are you paying interest and interest on interest, but as your house increases in value, you're paying a share of that, or the points. The points which are a percent of the loan amount when you get a regular conventional mortgage.

With a reverse mortgage, it's a percent of the whole value of your home. The costs of reverse mortgages are huge. It's not unusual to have the fees or the costs be anywhere from six to twelve thousand dollars for a loan that might cost you nothing otherwise.

Tavis: So much to consider and no time like the present to start considering it. The new book by Steve Weisman is "Boomer or Bust: Your Financial Guide to Retirement, Health Care, Medicare and Long-Term Care". Steve Weisman, nice to have you on the program. Thanks for coming on and talking to us.

Weisman: Thank you.

Tavis: My pleasure. Up next on this program, finally a new CD out from William "Smokey" Robinson. A conversation with all things music with Smokey Robinson in a moment. Stay with us.