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AGE: 65 and 58 Even though Howard Stone retired from his $135,000-a-year job two years ago, both he and his wife Marika are still working, thanks to their budding Internet venture: www.2young2retire.com - an "online community of adventurous people who are reshaping traditional ideas about retirement." With invested assets of approximately $700,000, the Stones weren't content with their retirement plans or their nest egg. Too late to do anything about it? Not in their eyes. Last year they met with a financial planner to map out the next five years, and their new goals based on their Net venture. Their planner provided them with three investing scenarios, each more aggressive than the last. They chose the middle course, which should give them a net worth of about $1.5 million by the time Howard turns 70. The planner took their scattered holdings - Marika's Keogh from her career as a yoga teacher, Howard's 401(k)s, and the pair's IRAs - and brought them all together in a Schwab account they could monitor more easily. Their stock/bond mix is about 60/40 at the moment - fairly aggressive for couples their age. But they feel comfortable with the risk, says Marika, who handles most of the couple's financial decisions. But isn't starting a Web venture at 65 a bit, well, riskier than the norm? Perhaps, but the Stones say they're looking to be productive and happy, not to become dotcom gazillionaires. If the site does take off, the money would be icing on the cake. In the meantime, says Howard, "we're both having a ball." - R.T.
AGE: 61 Andrea Williams and her husband, George Rogers, have five careers between them: information program manager, graphic designer (his); psychologist, systems analyst, weaving student (hers). But her most successful pursuit may be as an investor. Following principles she learned in 1995, when she started an investment club with friends, Williams has increased the couple's nest egg 144% in the past five years alone. Williams began investing with a small divorce settlement in 1982. (She remarried in 1985.) She used the money to open accounts with two mutual funds, one of which was an IRA. Even after she became eligible for a 401(k) in 1990, Williams never missed an IRA payment. Her contributions have always been the max. "The minute they raised the limit on 401(k)s to 15% from 10%," she boasts, "I was in that office filling out the necessary paperwork." When choosing stocks, Williams looks for companies with revenues and earnings that grow 15% per year and P/E ratios at or below their five-year average (criteria suggested by the National Association of Investment Clubs). Williams admits she's made aggressive choices for a couple in their sixties. Her stock portfolio is saturated with technology, thanks to her hands-on experience back in the mid-'90s with then-little-known products from companies like Cisco, Oracle and Gateway - whose stocks she then bought. But she balances that exposure by keeping 20% of her stake in bonds. Williams and her husband are also disciplined savers. They stash 15% of their six-figure income into stocks and funds such as Janus Worldwide and Van Kampen Emerging Growth. "We really like to live simply," says Williams, "so saving 15% is not a big pinch." The couple eats organic foods and practices yoga. "We expect live into our nineties without ever becoming a burden to our family." - J.C.
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Howard and Marika Stone 
Andrea Williams