I researched post-retirement withdrawals and portfolio while I was still working. I began by reading several general investing books from the
Bogleheads' Book List . They were great, I thought, and I agree that the
Bogleheads Guide to Retirement Planning is one of the very best, although I didn't read it until after I retired so it didn't really figure into my initial retirement planning; it just confirmed a lot of what I had already done. I gradually shifted my portfolio into its retirement asset allocation during the last few years of work because I didn't want to be stuck selling/buying all at once with possibly poor timing.
Since retiring, all I have had to do is keep checking and keep up to date. I do keep reading but haven't seen anything that inspires me to change my portfolio and AA much. I feel like my investing and withdrawals have worked out beautifully.
One place where I dropped the ball, was in gaining information about Social Security beyond knowing exactly what my payments would be at various ages. Luckily various ER Forum members strongly alerted me about the possibility that I could get
divorced spousal SS. I am now enjoying divorced spousal SS payments, and one was direct deposited in my bank account just this morning.
Likewise, dear Frank, a widower, was lacking in information on
social security widow/widowers/ benefits and he will be getting those shortly as well.
My point is that SS itself is very complex, and it's easy to just blow off reading about details that may or may not apply, because how much could there possibly be to learn? A lot, is the answer. There is a lot of misinformation about SS on the internet, so I suggest reading on the ssa.gov website directly.
