A timely guide to overcoming the retirement challenges we all face The Great Recession has placed a wake-up call to America's baby boomers. Many have not saved enough for retirement and have not taken a hard look at how many post-work years they may need to finance. Written in a straightforward and accessible style, The Hard Times Guide to Retirement Security tackles the tough questions about retirement in the new post-crash economy. Page by page, it puts retirement in perspective by touching on important issues such as insuring against the risk of outliving your assets, recalibrating damaged retirement portfolios, managing the risk of health-care expenses in retirement, and career strategies for workers who are 50 years old and up. Reveals how to boost lifetime income through better planning, and working just a few additional years Offers advice on how to hire a financial advisor whose first loyalty is to you, not Wall Street Discusses why you should rethink housing in the wake of the real estate crash Offers detailed advice on career reinvention, the 50+ job market and midlife entrepreneurship Engaging and informative, this practical guide provides the strategies needed for a truly fulfilling and secure retirement.

Today, there certainly are some people who still embrace the traditional retirement view. Once they put in their thirty-five years with the company and get the gold watch, they want to do a little more than play golf and chill out. They have reached the finish line, and they’re done. There’s nothing wrong with that mind-set, but we’ve found over the years that our clients who “retire to” rather than “retire from” tend to find more fulfillment in their golden years.

*This is the Revised 2024 Book Edition* 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 over your lifetime. - 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, RMDs, QCDs, 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. You will have the foundation to make the most of your retirement years, and I hope you'll be able to do something great!

Here is a single-sit read than can change the course of your retirement. Written by Dr. Teresa Ghilarducci, an economics professor, a retirement and savings specialist, and a trustee to two retiree health-care trusts worth over $54 billion, How to Retire with Enough Money cuts through the confusion, misinformation, and bad policy-making that keeps us spending or saving poorly. It begins with acknowledging what a person or household actually needs to have saved—the rule of thumb is eight to ten times your annual salary before retirement—and how much to expect from Social Security. And then it delivers the basic principles that will make the money grow, including a dozen good ideas to get current expenses under control. Why to “get rid of your guy”—those for-fee (or hidden-fee) financial planners that suck up valuable assets. Why it’s always better to pay off a loan or a mortgage. There are no gimmicks, no magical thinking—just an easy-to-follow program that works.

The most trustworthy source of information available today on savings and investments, taxes, money management, home ownership and many other personal finance topics.

Retirement planning was simple and predictable 40 years ago. All you needed was your company pension, personal savings, and Social Security. Those days are long gone. Most public pensions are underfunded, and private companies can’t get rid of them fast enough. Social Security’s own trustees predict it will run out of money in less than 20 years. And most people haven’t saved even a fraction of what they should. Retiring comfortably today is not about saving more, it’s about saving smart. In Don’t Retire Broke, you will learn: Traps to avoid before you retire. How to maximize Social Security benefits. What to do now if you still have a pension. How to keep the IRS out of your IRA. Isn’t it time to make sure you don’t retire broke?

Reverse mortgages have been surrounded by negativity. They were often mentioned alongside phrases like "last resort," "out of money," and "bad choice." In 2014, intrigued by the seemingly universal bad rap reverse mortgages had cultivated, Dr. Wade Pfau began researching them in depth. Over the course of the next year, he came to the conclusion that reverse mortgages aren't inherently a bad idea, though they are often misunderstood and not used in a most beneficial way. In fact, Dr. Pfau realized that reverse mortgages---when used correctly---can provide an added layer of security for retirees and allow them to enjoy retirement more by gaining liquidity from an illiquid asset. This second edition of the book is fully revised and updated for the modification of reverse mortgage rules affecting applications after October 2, 2017.