Retire Rich? Yes, You Can.

Life in Cleveland costs less than in its urban counterparts, but living large can creep up on credit cards. Janet Nabring-Stager isn't a stranger to financial planning; her former position at Charles Schwab in Chicago exposed her to the value of planning for retirement, she says. She and her husband, Jeff, 31, contributed to 401(k) accounts, rolling them over as they switched employers.

"We made it through two rounds of unemployment for my husband without touching the brokerage account and we've established a small account with some stock," says Janet, 30. But credit-card debt nags at the couple, who moved back to Cleveland in 2003 to settle near family and start a future they figure eventually will include little ones.

Living costs in Chicago had limited the couple's housing options — in fact, Janet says they ruled out buying there completely. Cleveland was simply more affordable.

But transition and fun times ran up a tab, she admits. Chicago nightlife, entertainment, shopping and dining options were too tempting to ignore. Despite two stable salaries, two growing 401(k) accounts and the brokerage account she set up while at Charles Schwab, the couple amassed modest credit-card debt.

When they moved to Cleveland, it grew. Today, the bill boils over at $12,000.

Their 1900 Euclid Ave. loft apartment was luxurious, at the very least, but the rent was hefty and monthly costs for Jeff's studio space, where he paints, racked up a fatter bill than they expected. "We knew we needed to buy and we knew we'd be hit with taxes for a double income and no kids," Janet says.

She pulled funds from her 401(k) and dollars they'd set aside in savings for a 10-percent down payment on a Lakewood home. "Because of our really good credit, we were able to buy without a lot of money down," she says.

But with Cleveland came a car payment, insurance, gas and maintenance. The Stagers cut out their cell phones to save money. They also found entertainment costs were quite a bit lower here. But as Jeff searched for full-time employment, juggling free-lance jobs on the side, the single income and comfortable lifestyle didn't mesh well. Meanwhile, Janet's loans from graduate school at DePaul University are $300 a month.

Today, Jeff's full-time job at Walker Printing in Mentor and Janet's position as Web-content manager at Invacare supply a $90,000 household income. Janet contributes about $400 per month to her 401(k). The brokerage account, with stock from General Electric, Charles Schwab and FedEx, continues to post positive returns. "The best move I made was setting up the brokerage account and always contributing to a 401(k), even if it was only a couple of percentage points from my salary," she says.

The brokerage account contains a little less than their credit-card debt. Janet wonders whether she should liquidate this fund and pay off the debt, especially as she considers intermediate plans — home improvements, for example. "The bathroom hasn't been touched since 1980," she quips. "And I'd like to have furniture for it someday."

Eventually, the couple also imagines decorating a nursery or two. And with children come additional expenses, from basics to such long-term investments as education.

"I think we'll be OK as long as we keep looking at alternatives," Janet figures. "My parents started off with less than I did, and they will retire very comfortably." She hopes her retirement days include plenty of travel and career independence, though cutting work out of the picture is not part of the plan. "I do anticipate working a long time, as does my husband," she says. "I don't think I'd do well not working."

Volunteering or freedom with a part-time position are options, she muses. "I'd like to have a home base, but know that we are secure financially. [We want to] stay close to family and friends, but have the opportunity, money and means to travel, go to museums, go to the orchestra and really be comfortable."

Toni Rodriguez scans through her career history. At 30, her abbreviated time in the work force already is punctuated by gaps and decorated with job jumps.

She remembers hitting rock bottom.

Two years ago, she was standing in line for food stamps in Lorain after tapping out the three months of unemployment compensation she was collecting from an information-technology position.

"I thought, How am I going to do this? How am I going to survive?" she recalls. She was thankful for help from friends and family, but her mother's fixed income allowed little room for financial gifts. Meanwhile, Rodriguez's degree in business information systems couldn't put food on the table — or finance her rent, for that matter.

"I was just embarrassed. All that was going through my mind was, I'm in my late 20s, I'm a college graduate and I have to apply for food stamps because I can't find a job and I don't have money to pay the bills or eat."

Today, the portrait is quite different. Rodriguez moved from her mother's home in Lorain to an apartment in the University Heights/Coventry area, and her mid-$30,000 income as a help-desk technician at Baker & Hostetler is steady, comfortable and carving into college and credit-card debt. She purchased a car two years ago — a 1988 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme — her first independent mode of transportation. Most of all, she can afford to repair it if it stalls.

But she's looking for more. She dreams of travel, tracing her family roots in Greece and visiting Spain. She wants the complete package: kids, house, car, vacations, grandchildren and money to spare. She watches retired families enjoy luxuries like nice automobiles and fancy dinners at fine restaurants. "I ask friends of my parents, •What did you do to set yourself up for this — to be able to have the Cadillac and the nice condos?' They say, •Good, solid investment planning.' But there are so many options out there, I'm afraid of making the wrong choices."

Rodriguez admits that she has made a few mistakes, but most of her financial decisions were predetermined by a poor economy and debt. "Trying to juggle loan payments plus an apartment — I couldn't even fathom a car or being able to live that post-graduate lifestyle," she says. "I still felt like I was in college, being constantly broke all the time."

Her first $13-per-hour job in IT support at Cincinnati Bell allowed for little "fun money," a frustrating reality that followed Rodriguez for the next six years. "I felt really trapped," she remembers.

She lowered student-loan payments to $100 through a contingency plan, but didn't erase the credit-card debt she incurred while trying to make ends meet. "Just about every student falls into that trap," Rodriguez says. "You have no income and the credit-card companies are like, •Here, buy a 2-liter bottle of Coke and sign up for this credit card.' I had about $3,000 in debt when I graduated." This escalated while she jumped from job to job and suffered unemployment stretches; the longest was six months.

Rodriguez recently hacked off a large portion of this debt burden. She consolidated and consulted collections agencies, negotiating lower payments. Last year, she paid off two cards. Today, she owes about $2,000. "I'm slowly paying them off and making arrangements," she says.

College debt that nears $40,000 punches a hole in her monthly paycheck, an expense she doesn't expect to rule out of her budget for at least 20 years. Rather than paying interest, she opted to tack interest onto the principal. "It feels like a debt I will always have," she says.

"I'm an urban professional, but I don't make $60,000 to $70,000," Rodriguez notes. "I know there are other people like me getting their feet wet — they just graduated from college and wonder where to get started."

A guidance counselor's pessimistic career prognosis fueled Tom Harsha's passion for financial success. College-bound he was not, she told him, despite his straight-A track record in industrial-arts classes. "In so many words, she told me I was not the sharpest tool in the shed and that I needed to think about what to do in life," remembers Harsha, 32.

He was heartbroken. "I made up my mind that day that I was going to show everyone and I'd do it by working harder and smarter," he says. Personal drive and a little "luck along the way" allowed him to surpass his counselor's salary five years after graduation. He chuckles, "I blew her away, and that was a personal goal and my first milestone."

The sales manager at a car dealership in Decatur, Ind., where Harsha had a job cleaning automobiles, recognized his potential and encouraged him to work hard and do what it takes to establish relationships with customers.

Sales quickly became Harsha's game. He played it well, wheeling, dealing and watching dollars roll in while he saved by living with his parents and driving demo cars. He contributed 15 percent to his 401(k), 12 percent to charitable organizations such as Youth for Christ, and he saved the rest. When Harsha left the dealership in 1997 to move to Cleveland with his wife, who was accepted to the Cleveland Institute of Music, his savings totaled close to $10,000, his 401(k) was worth $18,000 and his salary topped off at $67,000.

"I felt like I was on top of the world, never having a mortgage," he says. The couple rented an apartment in Cleveland Heights and Harsha rebuilt his client base, starting from scratch. He had a guaranteed draw salary for the first three months at Motorcars Honda in Cleveland Heights, but after that he was on his own. "I was scared to death," he recalls. "You can't go from a level of income you built up over six years to almost nothing."

Cash reserves were drained when Tom and his wife, Kathryn, 32, decided to chip away as much of her $26,000 annual tuition as possible before incurring loan debt. Meanwhile, he'd taken a $40,000 pay cut with the move. Cleveland's cost of living doubled their expenses and Tom had to purchase his first car. When Kathryn graduated in 1999, loan payments kicked in and credit-card debt cranked up.

"There is a place I want to be at 55, and you don't get there by paying a lot of interest," Harsha says. "That eats you alive." Today, the couple's credit-debt totals $8,900 with $6,900 in student loans, which Tom refinanced to a 3.87 percent fixed rate.

"We had a couple of breaks," he adds, pointing out his promotion to sales manager and Kathryn's success as a conductor, which led to employment opportunities. Today, she works as a music director at Bethany Covenant Church in Lyndhurst and also holds positions with the Lakeland Civic Orchestra, Ursuline College and Symphony West in North Olmsted.

Good news sometimes comes with a price tag attached, however. In 2000, the couple welcomed a baby and bought a home. A year later, a second child entered the picture.

Earlier this year, Tom entered a business partnership, Internet Dealer Solutions. He maintains full-time employment at Motorcars, taking advantage of health insurance benefits, but consults for eight to 10 other car dealerships, building their Internet departments, reviewing hardware and software, and helping dealerships hire and train personnel for online car sales.

Today's financial picture looks like this: Household income is $93,600 and his 401(k) is worth $32,829. They maintain a checking-account balance of roughly $5,000 to cover two months of bills in case of emergency. Tom recently started a $4,000 Roth IRA for Kathryn and the couple has $60,000 in bank stocks. "There are pockets all over the place," he says, wondering if he has made wise investing decisions.

Harsha proved his guidance counselor wrong — and he has lofty ideas for post-career days: a time-share in France and a jet to transport him there. He wants to provide college education for his children. "I don't know if I want to stop working, but I want to pick and choose what I do," he says. "If I play golf three days and consult for two, that's my idea of a perfect life."

The obstacles he and Kathryn will hurdle along the way include financing those two college educations and possibly upgrading their home down the road, with a potential move to the Chagrin Falls area. Tom will continue to build his consulting business, which he admits is "brand new to me."

The muted, teal paint on the living-room walls is barely dry, but Michaelann deVille isn't quite sure about the color. She hesitates, comparing the shade to a retro-patterned pillow. Half-unpacked moving boxes occupy corners and a vanilla-colored Arhaus sofa is stranded in the dining room after a failed attempt to squeeze it up a cramped stairwell to her master bedroom.

The walls, rooms and new furniture represent a clean slate for deVille — a fresh start, but still a work in progress. The 46-year-old mother of three moved into the Lakewood home in August when her divorce finalized.

"The immediate future is on my mind," she admits, tucking a chestnut lock behind her ear. "I've never been good at long-term planning because there is just so much going on right now."

"Right now" includes a college-bound senior at St. Ignatius High School, a 14-year-old social butterfly at Beaumont School and an energetic 11-year-old who bounds through the front door, ready for Mom to take her to see the GuitarMania guitars in front of the Rock Hall. These immediate engagements take priority over retirement reservations at this point.

"I'm very engaged in my work and children and everything around me," says deVille, a speech-language pathologist for the Cleveland Municipal School District. She's settling into a new home and adjusting to a different neighborhood after living in near-West Cleveland neighborhoods for more than 20 years.

Change is the constant in her days. Financial concerns center on balancing today and tomorrow: college educations and living expenses now, retirement and comfort later. She says setting aside dollars for down the road never took priority over the present, even during her marriage. "We were just trying to raise the family," she explains. A career change for her ex-husband and her part-time work as a clinical supervisor at Cleveland State University while her children were young didn't supply extra income to set aside significant funds for later. And planning a single-parent lifestyle certainly wasn't part of deVille's long-term financial strategy several years ago.

"I never did any college planning," she says. And with three children, each three years apart, this expense is an urgent reality. "My expectation is that I will earmark an amount of money for college and the rest will be up to them." Academic scholarships, she hopes, will assist her son, who excels in math. Private high-school tuition is a monthly budget line item, though not a burden because of endowment funds and scholarships that whittle down what could be $16,000 in annual tuition to around $500 a month. (Her ex-husband also pays a portion of the tuition.)

DeVille is debt-free, except for her home and lawyer fees, where she has a balance of $20,000 to manage. Equity from a home she and her husband own together, listed below $200,000, will defray these costs. She figures the remainder will help pay down the principal on her 30-year mortgage.

Otherwise, deVille doesn't spend more than she makes. "I'm a very frugal person," she says, adding that although she charged a new living-room set, she will pay the credit card bill in full when it arrives in the mail. A $10,000 cushion in her savings account allows her to live comfortably today, but even so, she budgets wisely. "I always shop for the best deals and I will continue to do so," she says.

An IRA with $10,000 in it and her State Teachers Retirement System savings will fuel her mature adult years. DeVille continues to contribute $50 each month to her investment plan. But striking a balance raises financial questions, she admits. When she collects equity from the joint home sale, how should she divide the pot? How much goes toward retirement, education, savings and expenses?

"Retirement concerns me because I look at how old I was when I started working in the schools, and I would be close to 70," she says, figuring a 30-year tenure based on her starting age of 40.

Meanwhile, deVille doesn't have lofty goals for her golden years. "I want to have enough to draw from for travel, vacation — to be able to go where I want," she says. She probably will continue to work in her field in some capacity. Passion for her career and children will color any future, she figures. She says her driving force is simply "the love of life."

Philip Zeber rings up a soda for a customer at his country store in Rock Creek, a pebble-sized stop in Ashtabula County where the largest traffic jam he can recall was a seven-car procession.

"There are two different types of owls on the river, and when I get out of my truck, I hear nothing," says the 49-year-old store owner. A generous collection of winning lottery tickets — $50 or more — plasters one wall, and a mural washes another. Locals stroll in and out all day; Zeber knows each by name.

He prefers country life: conversation rather than e-mail, faces and names rather than faxes and memos. This pace is quite different from his former high-speed Internet world. When Cisco downsized in 2002, the 25-year technology veteran and Internet protocol specialist walked away from a $129,000 salary with a secure severance package toward his retirement dreams.

Today, he places vendor orders with beer distributors and stocks shelves for busy weekends. Zeber left his Seven Hills home and purchased a $200,000 general store, the first stop on his retirement roadmap. Now, he operates at a $1,000 monthly loss — a big change from the days when the worth of his technology stock peaked at $355,000.

"I figured my business was computers and my game was real estate," he remarks. His final moves, he hopes, will land him acreage, a collection of A-frame houses for vacation renters and a comfortable but complete lifestyle.

After all, this simple living suits him. "I'm frugal," he says. "I buy what I need and I buy the best." He weighs discretionary purchases just as carefully as stock investments. "I could go into Kmart and get $25 boots, but I'd wear through them in three months," Zeber says. "Instead, I would go to a shoe store and get Red Wing boots that lasted two years."

Zeber started saving when he was a young boy with a couple paper routes in Rocky River. His father taught him to budget with a homemade banking tool: a cigar box he divided into four sections, one for each week of the month. "My dad told me some people would pay a week in advance, some will pay two in advance," he remembers, explaining how he placed advance pay in dedicated slots. He worked his way through each week and each section of the cigar box, and never went without pay.

Zeber graduated from St. Edward High School in Lakewood and followed in his father's footsteps, working on Great Lakes ore ships until he was 22. He landed his first technology job at Control Data Corp. in Lakewood, moved up quickly and saved diligently. He figured he was doing OK playing with stocks and real estate. He and his brother invested in a Lakewood apartment, where Philip lived for six months before purchasing his first home. That first real estate venture hooked Philip. He was 22 with a $22,500 country cottage in Rocky River, where he lived for 10 years — still collecting rent money from the Lakewood house — until a job offer from Electronic Data Systems in Texas pulled him west. Zeber retained a land contract on his house, eventually selling it for $48,000.

He repeated this real estate strategy with every home purchase. Each sale financed the next move — to Texas, Boston, Florida, Chicago and, eventually, back to Cleveland in 2000, when he moved to Seven Hills.

In the meantime, Zeber piled savings into a pension plan and his technology stocks were sweet. The market crash in 2001 decimated his $355,000 technology-stock stash. "I had to sell all my stocks to cover the margin," he recalls. "I lost my shirt, b