Your Complete Guide to a Successful and Secure Retirement (Second Edition)

Great book for planning retirement

This book covers more topics than most retirement planning books I've seen. It addresses areas that you should think about; not just how to invest but how to draw down your assets, when to take Social Security, insurance and long-term care, Medicare, estate planning. etc. When you finish this book you've been exposed to all the areas you should think about. There are 2 drawbacks to this book. The first (perhaps a nit) is related to how the information is presented. Too often the book has a sea of words to illustrate a point but there is no accompanying table. Take for example pg 73 contrasting a few funds. It is sentence after sentence with numbers, but unless you have a gift for visualization it can be hard to follow. Even better would have been having someone trained in presenting data help out on this book, such as the following the guides given in books by Edward Tufte like "Envisioning Information." At almost 300 pages nobody can accuse this book of being a glorified pamphlet, the problem I see is that while it touches on everything important it is not comprehensive. Take putting together a portfolio. Kudos to the author for talking about factors (size, value, etc) in investment. Most investment books you read that are older than a few years don't even touch on this since it is based on research coming out in the 1990's and beyond. At best those books talk about the tradeoff between market exposure and bonds. But while knowing about factors is important, how do you build a portfolio? This book has a sample portfolio in Ch. 4, talks about using factors in Ch. 7, talks about reasons for/against factors in Ch. 3, but doesn't in the end help you work out what *you* should do. For that you'll need to find another book, or hire an advisor following the principles of this book (see Appendix E). In sum this is as good or better than other books I've seen out there, but it could be made more helpful for the independent investor.

Larry Swedroe’s books often feel like the last word on a subject because his approach is so thorough. He does the hard work of absorbing the best current thinking and empirical research, and presenting it to us in a digestible form, so we don’t have to. This book, the third he has co-authored with colleague Kevin Grogan at Buckingham Strategic Wealth, is no exception. It is a comprehensive, well-researched, and wise guide to planning and managing retirement, certainly the best I’ve read on the subject. The book covers all the critical areas – life-planning, goal-setting, investment strategy, financial stress-testing, spend-down strategies, tax-management, social security, Medicare, annuities, insurance, reverse mortgages, estate planning, elder abuse, and more. These are not just discussed in general terms. Swedroe and Grogan are wealth management practitioners in real life. They have definite views and make specific recommendations. This is a comprehensive retirement blueprint, one you can act on. And while the material is clear and accessible, suitable for general readers, there is also a great deal of technical expertise on display – on asset allocation, for example, or tax-harvesting, or withdrawal optimization. It reads like an operations manual for a retirement advisory practice. This is the 16th book Larry Swedroe has written or co-written. If you want to gain an education in evidence-based personal investing (plus markets, assets, risk, and all related topics), do yourself a favor and read them all, in chronological order.

I am a retired CFP and although you don't need to be a financial professional to understand, appreciate and follow the advice in this book, it certainly helps. You will need to be very serious about rolling up your sleeves and devoting some time to your retirement planning (which you should do) before ordering this book. It you just want mainstream "save more and invest wisely" pablum, there are plenty of other, less rigorous choices out there. These authors know their stuff and do a good job of explaining it all. The challenge for most readers will be understanding all the nuances of cobbling together a successful plan and then implementing it with discipline and perseverance. If you're willing to do the work and stick with it, this book will be a great guide to lead you to a happy and successful retirement. Good luck.

This book tries to do too much. Instead of a really detailed and helpful discussion of important retirement issues like social security claiming it has general discussions that don't provide actionable help. The discussion of investments goes into a lot of detail on factor investing. This is more confusing than helpful. A simple recommendation to invest in low cost index funds would be more useful than dragging the reader through the factor zoo. Factors could be all nonsense anyways as the past does not predict the future. The section on "do you need a financial advisor?" makes it sound like you need an MBA to successfully invest on your own. Are the authors trying to scare the rubes into forking over a 1% advisory fee? They don't discuss how much their investing "expertise" will outperform simple buy and hold strategies using low cost index funds after their fees. I almost laughed at the ridiculous recommendations for retirement and family inheritance mission statements. Typically I am impressed by Larry Swedroe's writing; but this book isn't his best work.

Written well and very straightforward. Reasonable approach to retirement summarized. I found it reassuring to know that I am not alone in how I work thru the process of retirement and that other people experience it similarly

The good: This book does a good job of translating current research into practical advice, and covers an impressive range of topics. The authors don't talk down to you, but also don't get overly technical. If I were in the market for a financial advisor, I would definitely consider the authors and/or their firm. Some drawbacks: The book is also an advertisement for financial advisors; it is clearly intended to try to drum up business for the authors and their firm. Sometimes I think they make things overly complicated or skip some topics to try to convince the reader that he needs to hire a professional--which of course is an additional cost that may negatively impact your retirement. Calling it a "complete" guide is also clearly hyperbole. It doesn't tell you how to determine whether you have enough to retire; and it only discusses a single use for annuities – buying a deferred annuity that starts paying out at 85 as longevity insurance. Other uses for annuities are not evaluated.

Larry Swedroe and Kevin Grogan took on a challenging assignment to provide a relatively non-technical overview of a wide range of retirement planning issues. The authors successfully delivered a book that is very helpful to both professional advisors but especially individuals looking for guidance on how to prepare for retirement. Several chapters are notable for highlighting under-appreciated topics, including longevity risk, reverse mortgages, women's unique retirement issues, and the threat of elder abuse. I think the authors would be the first to admit that the book is not designed to delve too deeply into any one topic, but provides a comprehensive framework as well as resources on where to go for add'l information. Highly recommend.

I heard Larry Swedroe interviewed on a Canadian podcast discussing this book, and I had read one of his other books so I thought this would be a safe bet. Unfortunately I lost that bet. It's heavily focused on American retirees with little useful information beyond asset allocation and risk for Canadians. I was quite disappointed. Two stars out of 5 because less than 40% of the book was useful to me.