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Retirement Planning Guidebook: Navigating the Important Decisions for Retirement Success
*This is the Revised 2024 Book Edition published in January 2024* The Retirement Planning Guidebook helps you navigate through the important decisions to prepare for your best retirement. You will have the detailed knowledge and understanding to make smart retirement decisions:
- Understand your personal retirement income style, which can then help you navigate through the conflicting opinions about retirement strategies to choose your right path.
- Learn about investment and insurance tools that may best resonate with your personal style.
- Determine if you are financially prepared for retirement by quantifying your financial goals (annual spending, legacy, and reserves for the unexpected) and comparing them to your available assets.
- Make smart decisions for when to start Social Security benefits, which could potentially support an additional $100,000 or more of lifetime income from Social Security.
- Develop a plan for making the best initial and ongoing choices from the alphabet soup of Medicare options, as well as how to find health coverage if you retire before Medicare eligibility.
- Assess where you wish to live in retirement and whether there are helpful ways to incorporate housing wealth into your retirement strategy.
- Decide how to manage your long-term care risk between self-funding, Medicaid, or private insurance, and take steps to support living at home for as long as possible.
- Understand how to manage your taxes to pay less, to avoid common pitfalls, and to have more for your lifetime and your legacy. You will be able to apply tax diversification, asset location, tax bracket management, and Roth conversions to enhance the sustainability of your retirement assets.
- Get your finances organized and understand how to get your estate and incapacity planning documents in order, including your will, account titling, beneficiary designations, financial power of attorney, and advance health care directives.
- Identify whether there is a role for trusts in your estate plan for reasons related to avoiding probate, controlling how and when assets are disbursed, obtaining creditor protections, or helping to manage estate taxes.
- Prepare for the non-financial aspects of retirement, including the need to find purpose and passion, to understand if there is a role for work in retirement, to enhance relationships and social connections, and to maintain an active and healthy lifestyle.
Retirement has an entire vocabulary associated with it. We'll demystify the 4% rule, sequence-of-return risk, time segmentation and buckets, reverse mortgages, income annuities, variable annuities, fixed index annuities, long-term care insurance, living trusts, irrevocable trusts, budgeting, the funded ratio, Medicare Advantage, Medicare supplements, diversified investment portfolios, Roth conversions, the hazards of the Social Security tax torpedo and increased Medicare premiums, buffer assets, 401(k) plans and IRAs, the rollover decision, distribution options for defined-benefit company pensions, required minimum distributions, qualified charitable distributions, aging in place, cognitive decline, and so much more.
The Retirement Planning Guidebook does not let important matters fall through the cracks. This is a comprehensive look at the key retirement decisions to achieve financial and non-financial success.
- Understand your personal retirement income style, which can then help you navigate through the conflicting opinions about retirement strategies to choose your right path.
- Learn about investment and insurance tools that may best resonate with your personal style.
- Determine if you are financially prepared for retirement by quantifying your financial goals (annual spending, legacy, and reserves for the unexpected) and comparing them to your available assets.
- Make smart decisions for when to start Social Security benefits, which could potentially support an additional $100,000 or more of lifetime income from Social Security.
- Develop a plan for making the best initial and ongoing choices from the alphabet soup of Medicare options, as well as how to find health coverage if you retire before Medicare eligibility.
- Assess where you wish to live in retirement and whether there are helpful ways to incorporate housing wealth into your retirement strategy.
- Decide how to manage your long-term care risk between self-funding, Medicaid, or private insurance, and take steps to support living at home for as long as possible.
- Understand how to manage your taxes to pay less, to avoid common pitfalls, and to have more for your lifetime and your legacy. You will be able to apply tax diversification, asset location, tax bracket management, and Roth conversions to enhance the sustainability of your retirement assets.
- Get your finances organized and understand how to get your estate and incapacity planning documents in order, including your will, account titling, beneficiary designations, financial power of attorney, and advance health care directives.
- Identify whether there is a role for trusts in your estate plan for reasons related to avoiding probate, controlling how and when assets are disbursed, obtaining creditor protections, or helping to manage estate taxes.
- Prepare for the non-financial aspects of retirement, including the need to find purpose and passion, to understand if there is a role for work in retirement, to enhance relationships and social connections, and to maintain an active and healthy lifestyle.
Retirement has an entire vocabulary associated with it. We'll demystify the 4% rule, sequence-of-return risk, time segmentation and buckets, reverse mortgages, income annuities, variable annuities, fixed index annuities, long-term care insurance, living trusts, irrevocable trusts, budgeting, the funded ratio, Medicare Advantage, Medicare supplements, diversified investment portfolios, Roth conversions, the hazards of the Social Security tax torpedo and increased Medicare premiums, buffer assets, 401(k) plans and IRAs, the rollover decision, distribution options for defined-benefit company pensions, required minimum distributions, qualified charitable distributions, aging in place, cognitive decline, and so much more.
The Retirement Planning Guidebook does not let important matters fall through the cracks. This is a comprehensive look at the key retirement decisions to achieve financial and non-financial success.
- GenresFinancePersonal Finance
502 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 15, 2023
229 people are currently reading
65 people want to read
About the author
Wade Pfau
7 books21 followersWADE D. PFAU
PhD, CFA®
Professor of Retirement Income
RICP® Program Director
Co-Director of the New York Life Center for Retirement Income
Areas of Expertise:
Annuities, Financial Planning, Investments, Life Insurance Planning, Life Insurance Practices, Portfolio Management, Retirement Planning
BA, University of Iowa
BS, University of Iowa
MA, Princeton University
PhD, Princeton University
PhD, CFA®
Professor of Retirement Income
RICP® Program Director
Co-Director of the New York Life Center for Retirement Income
Areas of Expertise:
Annuities, Financial Planning, Investments, Life Insurance Planning, Life Insurance Practices, Portfolio Management, Retirement Planning
BA, University of Iowa
BS, University of Iowa
MA, Princeton University
PhD, Princeton University
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 24, 2024
A very serious approach to especially the financial aspects of retirement. Probably more than anyone really needs to know but I liked the hardnosed, scientific approach, the wealth of suggested other sources, and the convenient checklists. (I really won't be doing much of the stuff he recommends but I found it interesting nonetheless.)
February 4, 2024
I think that everyone should read this book. While some of the topics are dry, this book is very useful for a broad range of reasons. At a minimum, most readers will at least receive a refresher on a number of topics tied to retirement planning.
November 21, 2024
This is a reference book rather than a book that is "read and done." The book is an in-depth look and many issues of retirement including long-term care, withdrawal strategies and when to start Social Security. It brings up many different issues and gives the various arguments to help a person understand, whether they are a DIYer or working with a financial advisor. The audience for the book may be advisors more than the DIY market.
It's a book I will return too when I need more information about a specific topic in retirement planning.
Something Wade Pfau has developed is the Retirement Income Style Analysis (RISA) which is a good assessment tool to help individual understand what type of retirement income sourcing most closely aligns with their individual style. That awareness of what a person feels comfortable with retirement income will help them or them and their advisor understand how the income received in retirement is sourced.
With knowledge of a person's RISA preferences and advice found in books like Retirement Planning Guidebook, much of financial uncertainty can be understood and addressed.
It's a book I will return too when I need more information about a specific topic in retirement planning.
Something Wade Pfau has developed is the Retirement Income Style Analysis (RISA) which is a good assessment tool to help individual understand what type of retirement income sourcing most closely aligns with their individual style. That awareness of what a person feels comfortable with retirement income will help them or them and their advisor understand how the income received in retirement is sourced.
With knowledge of a person's RISA preferences and advice found in books like Retirement Planning Guidebook, much of financial uncertainty can be understood and addressed.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews