10 Best Retirement Planning Books [Updated 2021]
Retirement is a stage in the life of a human being which is inevitable and will occur once the individual has completed their career span. They need to plan out their future accordingly and utilize their savings wisely. Below is the list of top 10 best retirement planning books to read in 2021 –
- The 5 Years Before You Retire ( Get this book )
- The New Rules of Retirement: Strategies for a Secure Future ( Get this book )
- How to Retire with Enough Money: And How to Know What Enough Is ( Get this book )
- How to Make Your Money Last ( Get this book )
- How to Retire Happy, Wild and Free ( Get this book )
- How to Retire Happy ( Get this book )
- The Complete Cardinal Guide to Planning for and Living in Retirement ( Get this book )
- Retirement Income Planning: The Baby Boomers 2017 Guide ( Get this book )
- The Smartest Retirement Book You’ll Ever Read ( Get this book )
- The Truth about Retirement Plans and IRA’s ( Get this book )
Let us discuss each of the Retirement Planning books in detail along with its key takeaways and reviews.
#1 – The 5 Years Before You Retire
by Emily Guy Birken
Book Summary
Since 5 years is an ideal time frame to consider life post-retirement, this best retirement planning book is a comprehensive guide before time starts running out. The book emphasizes on how Americans are unable to save sufficient income, despite starting well in advance. Accordingly, meticulous guidance is offered through each Financial, Medical, and Familial decision from taking benefits of the employee benefits offered by the company for the 401k program or enrolling in Medicare or considering housing as an investment option.
Key Takeaways from this Best Retirement Planning Book
The initial portion of the book is on the slower side since its focus is on budgeting techniques and filling out worksheets. It is subsequently when the need for a correct Financial planner surface is when things become interesting. The planner should precisely understand the difference between a fiduciary and a salaried person and how they can guide based on the financial status of their client. It also offers advice on the importance of medical programs and also tackling complex government programs and how once retirement occurs, one does not have to focus on the numbers but enjoy life and meet changing demands for self and the family.
<< Get this book >>
#2 – The New Rules of Retirement: Strategies for a Secure Future
by Robert C. Carlson
Book Summary
This best retirement planning book provides the latest and proven strategies that guide one to put a silver lining in the life of an individual to be met in the retirement years. It stresses the fact that retirement is to be considered as a new phase of life and not the sunset. The modern-day retirees are traveling the globe, pursuing new hobbies, developing new skills, becoming entrepreneurs, and better into their golden years. This guide helps in ensuring one has the financial independence to pursue retirement one wants through smart planning and effective financial strategies.
Key Takeaways from this Best Retirement Planning Book
Some of them can be listed as follows:
- Create awareness of the potential threats to the financial security of retirees and accordingly overcome them
- Learn the right way to estimate retirement spending and develop a sustainable strategy to spend judiciously
- Invest and diversify the individual portfolio to enhance returns even during difficult situations
- Plan for potential long-term healthcare
- Leave a legacy for close ones
#3 – How to Retire with Enough Money: And How to Know What Enough Is
by Teresa Gilda Rucci
Book Summary
Certain statistics suggest that the majority of the American population above the age of 50 have around $30,000 saved for retirement. At this rate, millions of Americans who are expected to retire over the next decade will be living near a poverty level. The current social security reforms are not expected to be sufficient to meet the needs of middle-class Americans.
Key Takeaways
This best retirement planning book dissects the confusion and misinterpretations, and poor policy-making, which makes most of the Americans spend excessively or save poorly. It commences with acknowledgment of what a person or household actually is required to save in terms of their demands and financial ability and by maintaining a thumb rule of saving 8-10 times the annual salary before retirement while keeping humble expectations from the social security reforms offered by the government.
It also offers a number of good ideas to get the current level of expenses under control without the assistance of financial planners as much as possible. The importance is also highlighted on why also pay off a loan or mortgage should amount while maintaining a simplistic language, which is easier for all the readers.
4.9 (1,067 ratings) 250+ Courses | 40+ Projects | 1000+ Hours | Full Lifetime Access | Certificate of Completion
#4 – How to Make Your Money Last
by Jane Bryant Quinn
Book Summary
This top retirement planning book is considered a treasure chest of financial secrets, tips, and advice for individuals who have retired or are about to retire in the near future. It is considered of tremendous value towards the working class, including those who have recently commenced their careers. It eases the reader into the mindset of retirement and displays clarity that the financial and personal anxiety which many experiences are commonplace.
The author provides a guide for taking complete control of this phase in life, not just from the monetary side but also from the psychological angle. The general saving options and investments offer safe money, which will help in payment of bills but to ensure that one has spending money for 10-20 years post-retirement, there is a need to invest in growth.
Key Takeaways
This book on retirement planning is a short, punchy, and compassionate guide which will offer direction in matters such as:
- Deciding on social security
- Choosing supplemental health coverage and life insurance policies
- Managing of the house as an Asset
- A decision on how long one should work to have sufficient money in the retirement age.
#5 – How to Retire Happy, Wild and Free
by Ernie J. Zelinski
Book Summary
This best retirement planning book offers an inspirational insight into how one should completely enjoy their lives. Many of us consider retirement as an end of life, but in fact, it can mean an entirely new beginning to the life for which there was no time to explore. The author highlights that the key to enjoying an active and satisfying retirement is dependent on much more than having adequate financial resources. One should also focus on other aspects such as maintaining physical and mental health, desired leisure activities, improving social circle. The retirement wisdom in this book will prove to be much more important than the amount of money saved for retirement.
Key Takeaways
It offers inspirational advice on how to follow dreams for self rather than for others, how to put retirement in a correct perspective, and how to enjoy life without any guilt. The easy to read format, lively cartoons, and captivating quotations make it a friendly read for anyone. The author has focussed on the below aspects apart from the above:
- Garner courage to take early retirement to reap more benefits
- Better envision individual retirement goals, including living aspects
- Channelize money in a judicious manner so that one does not necessarily require a million dollars to retire
- Above all, make your retirement years the best time of life.
#6 – How to Retire Happy
by Stan Hinden
Book Summary
One of the best-selling books, this guide helps the readers to make the right decisions at an early age for ensuring a happy and healthy retirement. It delivers all the expert advice one needs in an easy-to-understand language in a step-by-step style.
The author has highlighted his personal experiences and the errors which have made, and what others should carefully consider before making decisions on retirement. This retirement planning book is recommended for readers of all ages since those at young ages can start planning for the same at the earliest. The amount of expenses during a younger age is significantly high as the burden of managing a home and family is existing. Subsequently, in older age, there will be a lot of money to save.
Key Takeaways
Some of the important highlights of this retirement planning book are:
- Fully updated material on strategies for the management of social security
- How to handle the financial realities of the post-meltdown economy
- The author’s personal experience with long-term realities of Alzheimer’s care
- Guidance on Health insurance, Medicare, and prescription drug plan
#7 – The Complete Cardinal Guide to Planning for and Living in Retirement
by Hans Scheil
Book Summary
Through this top retirement planning book, the author, with his 40 years of experience in financial planning and business, attempts to answer important questions pertaining to retirement with the help of real-life examples such as :
- What are smart investment strategies for financing retirement years
- How to tackle changes in tax rates post-retirement
- If one survives for more years than what the retirement savings last
- How to approach choosing a financial and legal professional for planning retirement
- The best manner to transfer life insurance and other assets to the next kin
The financial complexities faced in retirement can be a tough ask. This guide offers all the tools one requires to understand how to make informed decisions for someone, post-retirement with the help of major retirement options. It explains simple and effective strategies one can put in place with the aid of professionals for making retirement financially successful.
<< Get this book >>
#8 – Retirement Income Planning: The Baby Boomers 2017 Guide
by Mark J.Orr
Book Summary
This best retirement planning book is ideally suitable for people who are within 10-15 years of retirement or already retired and looking for a better plan. The author highlights the top 5 retirement risks:
- Living a longer life than expected
- Inflationary risks
- Stock and Bond market risks
- Rising Healthcare costs
- Higher taxation risks
The focus is on creating a dependable and increasing lifetime monthly cash flow that offers true financial freedom and peace of mind in what can be expected to be as much as a 30-year retirement. Instead of allocating the assets which most of the planners are focussing on, the author devotes the bulk of his practice towards income and strategy allocation, which reduces the 5 retirement risks mentioned above.
Key Takeaways
This guide offers all the smart and safe retirement planning strategies to accomplish the same. It covers all the bases that one needs to help to avoid making a planning mistake and make sure they go through a situation when the money of the retiree will outlive the individual and not vice-versa. One should be taking care of real people with real money, and on-going retirement dreams are what is brought onto the table.
<< Get this book >>
#9 – The Smartest Retirement Book You’ll Ever Read
by Daniel R. Solin
Book Summary
As the name suggests, this top retirement planning book is indeed a short, smart, and basic way to prepare and face the music of the retirement phase. It has 59 very precise chapters dwelling on individual financial topics, which, if appears too much, includes a 1 sentence summary. It is a very good book if one knows very little about investing or if this is the first book going to be read. It summarizes the below aspects:
- Ensuring that the money earned survives longer than the life expectancy of an individual
- Avoiding common mistakes which can leave the spouse and kin impoverished
- Maintain awareness of scams which steals one of their hard-earned savings
- Find simple strategies to diversify and maximize retirement portfolios
- Discover financial lifelines, no matter the situation of the economy and other macroeconomic situations prevailing.
#10 – The Truth about Retirement Plans and IRA’s
by Ric Edelman
Book Summary
This guide highlights how to make savings wisely for the purpose of retirement. Through this top retirement planning book, the readers are offered a step by step guide in a simplistic language with a crisp explanation. The Social security plans and IRA (Individual Retirement Account) offered to the American population are very complex and costly, making it uncertain on how much money should be saved for retirement purposes. The author aims to demystify the myths associated with retirement planning with the focus being on:
- How to make contributions even when one thinks they cannot afford to
- Making wise choices among the investment options
- How to convert the 401(k) into income so one can get the lifestyle as the desired post-retirement.
This guide is beneficial to readers of all age groups. Those who have recently joined the workforce will understand the importance of savings, those in the middle period of their career will discover how much money should be invested whilst taking maximum advantage of the investment options and tax laws applicable. Readers who are n retirement or close to it will learn how to position their retirement savings in a manner that produces income not for the present but also for the rest of their life.
<< Get this book >>
Other Books that you may like
- Financial Planning Books
- Health Insurance Books
- Financial Management Books
- Best Wealth Management Books
- Best Taxation Books
AMAZON ASSOCIATE DISCLOSURE
WallStreetMojo is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.
