Retirement Planning Book Recommendation

[RobotMom]

I used the search function to make sure this hasn't been covered. I think my DH and I could benefit from retirement planning. What I would like to do is for us to figure out our priorities then use that to figure out retirement expenses. Then use that to figure out what income streams we need in order to meet those goals. Can you recommend a book with worksheets and stuff like that? I like to think of myself as at least intermediate when it comes to personal finance - so I don't want something too elementary.

Some of the things we're wondering is: should we sell the rental house? How much longer should he work? If someone offers to buy his business, when and for how much should we sell? etc.

 

[MBAustin]

Bob Clyatt's "Work Less, Live More" book has a lot of information and there is a companion workbook (with spreadsheets on CD-ROM, which tells you they haven't been updated in quite a while). Work Less, LIve More: The Way to Semi-Retirementby BOB CLYATT

 

[ImThinkin2019]

Bob Clyatt's "Work Less, Live More" book has a lot of information and there is a companion workbook (with spreadsheets on CD-ROM, which tells you they haven't been updated in quite a while). Work Less, LIve More: The Way to Semi-Retirementby BOB CLYATT

You will get many book and calculator recommendations on this forum. I did use Work Less, Live More spreadsheets to start estimating living cost at one time. I think they are good for a start.

A foundation of planning many of use is firecalc. It's free. i-orp is also free but a little more work. Firecalc is for back of the envelope calcs and i-orp is for more analytical folk.

After many different trials, we ended up buying Laurence Kotlikoff's software. About $50/year if I recall - we have let it lapse. (Now it's called Maxfi). The reason we got it was we wanted a good estimate of our Social Security and Dr. Kotlikoff is the best student and predictor of what will happen. It helped with this.

In the end we got Pralana Retirement Calculator because the Roth Rollover optimization modeling is easiest with that. That's probably what we will stick with.

Many of us also make our own Google Sheets or Excel sheets. That's what my wife and I use to track how we're doing vs plan.

Fidelity has a pretty handy retirement planning tool as well, if you are their customer. Not so good at tracking actual vs plan but good at "do we have enough".

You will probably test run a few different tools till you find what fits right for you.

Best wishes to you. You will find lots of genuine people on this forum who are very helpful with this subject.

 

[Sunset]

OP - I find tracking actual expenses helpful, because then you know precisely how much is spent.

Selling the rental is really a lifestyle choice along with a financial one.

Selling a business is also a lifestyle choice like quitting work, the issue of how much to sell it for is determined by the value of the business, which varies greatly depending upon the actual business.

 

[Midpack]

OP - I find tracking actual expenses helpful, because then you know precisely how much is spent.

Selling the rental is really a lifestyle choice along with a financial one.

Selling a business is also a lifestyle choice like quitting work, the issue of how much to sell it for is determined by the value of the business, which varies greatly depending upon the actual business.

+1. I’m not aware of another good retirement book with comprehensive worksheets like the OP is asking for.

The Bogleheads retirement book https://www.amazon.com/Bogleheads-Guide-Retirement-Planning/dp/0470919019

or https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Bogleheads®_retirement_planning_start-up_kit might be helpful.

 

[CRLLS]

For us we started with knowing our expenses before retirement, subtracted any costs that would no longer apply in retirement and added whatever new expenses we wanted to plan for (i.e. a bucket list). One of the biggest changes every year was health insurance costs. It went up consistently under ACA and then even higher when one of us was on Medicare and the other on ACA and finally went down under Medicare. YMMV. Blending all of that with in when to take SS while still PT working was another big variable.

Only you DH can fill in the bucket list planning part. No book will do that for you. The rest is just record keeping. As a wise man once said, "You can do anything you want, you just can't do everything you want."

Simple really from a 10,000 ft level. It is just a budget. What throws a wrench in the works for some of us is constantly managing the ACA subsidy and then IRMAA, SS reduction due to working before FRA, Roth conversions and life's ups and downs. Nothing seems to go exactly as planned in any one year. Being flexible helps. It does balance out over time.

We used the 1) Fidelity Retirement planner, 2) FireCalc and 3) I-Orp to confirm we were financially ready or at least wouldn't go down in a ball of fire. In the end, we hired a CFP on a one-time fixed-fee basis to create a 35 year detailed financial plan including an overview of expected taxes based on our inputs. I replicated that plan in Excel and tweaked with it for a few years.

What I have learned on this site over time is that there is no one "best" answer for the questions you asked. The "good" answers do vary as much as the members themselves.

 

[Midpack]

For us we started with knowing our expenses before retirement, subtracted any costs that would no longer apply in retirement and added whatever new expenses we wanted to plan for (i.e. a bucket list). One of the biggest changes every year was health insurance costs. It went up consistently under ACA and then even higher when one of us was on Medicare and the other on ACA and finally went down under Medicare. YMMV. Blending all of that with in when to take SS while still PT working was another big variable.

Only you DH can fill in the bucket list planning part. No book will do that for you. The rest is just record keeping. As a wise man once said, "You can do anything you want, you just can't do everything you want."

Simple really from a 10,000 ft level. It is just a budget. What throws a wrench in the works for some of us is constantly managing the ACA subsidy and then IRMAA, SS reduction due to working before FRA, Roth conversions and life's ups and downs. Nothing seems to go exactly as planned in any one year. Being flexible helps. It does balance out over time.

+1. No better way that I know of than to look at what you're actually spending now, and consciously adding new expenses and deleting others (presumably work related). Two things I'd consider:

• If you plan to reduce any existing expenses, try it out before you retire. We went on our projected retirement budget for two years before I retired to make sure we could really live on it without feeling deprived.
• Don't forget to add some budget mechanism for large non-annual expenses. (Misuse of the term but) I added an "accrual" category based on what I expected our large non-annual expenses would be - things like new cars, home remodeling/updates/repainting/reroofing, replacement HVAC/furnace, HW, appliances, consumer electronics, furniture, boats/golf clubs, extraordinary travel - or whatever applies for your case. We estimated $10K/year and that's been fairly accurate, though it varies wildly from year to year.