Your Retirement Income Blueprint: A Six-Step Plan to Design and Build a Secure Retirement - 2nd Edition

by Daryl Diamond

Updated with new rates and strategies, Your Retirement Income Blueprint - 2nd Edition is Canada's best selling guide to retirement income planning for consumers and advisors alike. As more and more Canadian boomers are approaching retirement, the transition from accumulating assets in their working years to creating a reliable stream of income in retirement is becoming a top-priority issue for a huge segment of the population. Your Retirement Income Blueprint is an antidote for Canadians who are generally ineptly advised, under-serviced, and over-charged by advisors on planning retirement income. Based on the author's specialized experience in retirement income planning, this book will help readers to work through the many stages of their retirement and adapt their income plans to account for constantly changing health and family issues. The book will help you to: •Combine government and personal sources of income most efficiently •Determine which assets to use first and which to defer •Preserve government benefits and entitlements that are in many cases needlessly wasted or lost •Create results that are more survivor- and estate-friendly than traditional approaches •Greatly reduce taxes on retirement income and to the aggregate estate. Your Retirement Income Blueprint lays out a six-step process for "taking apart" accumulated assets, making the most out of what you have taken a lifetime to save, and creating an income that lasts as long as you do.

Genres: Nonfiction, Finance, Reference

237 pages, Paperback

First published April 14, 2011

Reviews

[Alexa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I guess I see how other people would find this helpful.
It doesn't get into much specifics either, and rather leaves it to "you and your advisor to decide." I get that everyone's situation is different, but I guess I expected a bit more? A lot of the book just didn't jibe with me.
I liked the section on insurance though.

[Kevin Massey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great information just getting a little dated

[Diane B · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had to re-read and re-read certain passages as they seemed composed for people already acquainted with the basics. The book was also published in 2011, before robo-investing and ETFs became viable options.

I was using to try to figure out if I should stick with a particular product or abandon ship, and although this brought me a little bit closer to understanding I will still need the council of a good advisor (and unfortunately I no longer trust the advisor who sold me the product).

Lots of useful tips but still looking for something a bit more plain spoken.

[elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book for those on the brink of retirement, which sadly, I am not. Will revisit this book in the future.

[Gerhard Pratt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have very mixed feelings about this book. I read it about 4 years ago as I was approaching retirement, and it was extremely frustrating. It does contain some important and useful strategies, and it helped me a great deal in formulating my own retirement strategies. However don't go into this thinking you will see a single example of a real "blueprint". There are many tables, and some pie charts that help visualize what a blueprint for retirement might look like, but if you want to project your own retirement funds as they decumulate, you have two choices: you can hire someone like Daryl Diamond, or you can use the advice and figure out how to do this with a spreadsheet.

The book is clearly written to convince you to hire a financial advisor to create your blueprint (he freely confesses to distributing the book to potential clients). But anyone with basic spreadsheet skills can certainly do a first pass themselves, and Diamond could have given his readers such a tool. But that is not why he wrote the book!

The key advice that Diamond conveys is to implement a "bucket" strategy, in which you move funds from investments into 1-, 2-, or 3-year cash holdings (i.e. GIC's) on an annual basis, always protecting your short term needs while leaving enough in long term (more volatile) investments. This is a well known strategy (Google it), but Diamond wants to claim it for himself, calling this a "cash wedge" strategy and writing that "[he, Diamond] developed it [the strategy] in 1993". A misleading claim that betrays his inner salesman persona ...

Don't get me wrong, Diamond is knowledgeable and capable, and he goes much further and discusses a wide variety of strategies that include insurance-based methods, the use of annuities, and a great deal on tax strategies. But after a while his anecdotal analogies get tiresome, and his warnings to consolidate all your investments under one roof (i.e. his roof) are transparently self-serving.

[Tamsyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I forgot to add this months ago because i didn't finish the final chapters. We read this in my behavioural finance book club and it was pretty interesting how differently we reacted to it. The other financial planners had similar underwhelmed reactions to me, whereas the investment advisors got a lot more out of it. I was at first excited because any strategies or quotes over the years ive heard attributed to Darryl Diamond all made sense, and not only that but he was a Canadian author. However i only rate it a three because for me it was preaching to the choir and therefore kind of boring. I.e. it was already what i know or how i plan in my own practice, (with the sole exception of his take on timing of pension withdrawals, which is very interesting and maybe even controversial to some). However for the target audience, i.e. a Canadian person planning their retirement paycheque and looking for a blueprint, then this is exactly the book I would recommend.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book with well thought out planning. Will definitely need to review and read again as there is a lot to absorb. I did find there are some aspects I did not agree with or contradicts other advice but I still very much appreciate looking at it from multiple points of view (for example taking CPP early, buying critical illness and long-term care insurance).

Overall, I would suggest that simply employing only a few of these strategies will improve your overall plan immensely! Thank you Daryl!

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

By far the most comprehensive book I've read on how to deal with post-retirement assets. Complicated, though. I'll need to read it over a few times, along with several deep dives into my financial situation, to truly understand my options. Still, great to know I can make decisions now that will positively influence my income situation for years to come.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

An in depth look at retirement income options in Canada. While this is dense reading there is a lot of great information here. The author does provide justification for his recommendations which was great for me because I like to understand the reasons to know if they apply to me. I could see myself referring to this book again and again.

[Mark Mccormick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent.

[Steve Thomson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book . Glad I read it before I retired . I make all kinds of stupid plans everyday but a plan for retirement is one I have to take seriously .

[Maureen · Rating 4 out of 5]

made me think about my own financial, emotional situation; will have to do some reviewing of my plans using some of Diamond's suggestions

[Lindsay B · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just a bunch of terrible golf analogies with no valuable information.

[Frito · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous! I have been looking for a book like this for years. After planning and achieving an early retirement, I have been unable to get anyone (either financial advisors or active retirees) to explain the best way to "spend" our savings to make it last without wasting a lot on taxes and inefficiencies. Mr. Diamond's definitions of flexible and inflexible souces of income, topping up tax brackets and pros and cons of holding on to registered funds for the tax free growth have made the whole process so much clearer to me. I love the cash wedge model which fits my risk profile...keep enough cash at hand for short and mid term needs and push out the rest in various exposure to take advantage of growth opportunities. I am also happy that the figures used are in our current low interest/volatile economy time frame. It is very difficult to reconcile information from a financial book that was written pre-2008. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

I need a book like this in about 10 years - how to effectively transition from income accumulation to income withdrawl. Some of it went over my head and I skimmed a couple chapters. Things I want to remember: 5% withdrawl rate, pay attention to my net income and how it will reduce my OAS benefit and affect my tax bracket - in 2011, the sweet spot was $32,961 for net income with no reduction in benefits. Take a closer look at the Cash Wedge strategy and health insurance needs for when I'm retired. Immediately after retirement is usually the "golden years" and at some point it will become the "olden years", so do all the exciting/fun stuff asap, don't wait.

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great read for anyone in or nearing retirement in Canada. I'm sure the overall principles are good for anyone but the specific products/tax rules, etc. are specific to Canada. I found the book insightful and very well written. Let's face it, retirement is a new chapter for all of us and one that can seem quite scary from the outside looking in.

[Adam Gordon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal book to give Canadians a more thorough understanding of the planning tools needed for retirement. Conceptualizing what retirement may look like as well as how to maximize the value of your assets and government programs is one of the highlights of Daryl's book.

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

excellent at helping you think through the issues and taxation focus of retirement. People worry about the MER or cost of funds but then "throw away" money by not thinking about taxation in retirement. Also practical eg what are the top 10 things you want to do while healthy...for eg.

[Brian Connell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sound advice. More a strategy than a prescription. I'd hire Daryl.

[Winnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many good advice.