Cracking open the nest egg

by Martin Hawes

Planning for your retirement can be as Carey thought, whether it is just around the corner or years in the future. Martin Hawes, one of New Zealand’s best-known experts on personal finance, answers all of the questions that may be keeping you up at night: how much will I need to retire? Can I afford to stop working? How do I make sure my money lasts as long as I do?

Hawes guides you step-by-step through the planning process, showing you how you can safely create a regular income from your investments for the rest off your life

Genres: Nonfiction

192 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2021

Reviews

[Lena · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book has 190 pages but only two gold nuggets that could be fitted on to an A5 page. I found the language of this book pretty hard to get through, but that's the language of Kiwi baby boomers, who are the main audience of this book. Being in my early 40s and intending to reach financial independence early, the was no useful advice other than:
- creating a lake of cash for when the share market is down, equivalent to 2 years of the 4% drawdown amount
- setting aside money for each expenditure category, e.g., Dividends for housing, KiwiSaver for health, NZ Super for groceries etc.
Another tiny nugget was related to the details of the retirement village's license to occupy.

[Klaas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Useful advice on how to transition into retirement and spend just the right amount of money so you don’t run out, nor end up leaving it all to the kids. The recommended investment strategy was useful. The book could have been a lot shorter though as there was a lot of repetition and over explaining.

[Wilma · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. Really informative and certainly gives you a lot to think about.
The only thing I disagree with is the advice that he gives that he thinks all retirees should have a financial planner.

[Andrew Ritchie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall this book is good for prompting thoughts around your investment strategy in retitement.

Good general advice on setting up a retirement fund and how you might manage a fund differently before and after retirement.

It is useful to have a section on unlocking the value in your own home, something I feel advice is light on.

The Listed Property section buried in the Glossary is very useful and should, in my view have been given a higher profile in the main body of the book.