Retirement Planning Guidebook: Navigating the Important Decisions for Retirement Success - Hardcover

Pfau, Wade

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1945640170 ISBN 13: 9781945640179

Publisher: Retirement Researcher Media, 2023

Synopsis

* THIS IS THE 2ND EDITION. THE 3RD EDITION IS NOW AVAILABLE (JANUARY 2026) *

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.

- 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, required minimum distributions, qualified charitable distributions, 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!

About this title

About the Author

Wade D. Pfau, PhD, CFA, RICP® is the founder of Retirement Researcher, an educational resource for individuals and financial advisors on topics related to retirement income planning. He is a co-founder of the Retirement Income Style Awareness tool and a co-host of the Retire with Style podcast. He also serves as a principal and the director of retirement research for McLean Asset Management. He also serves as a Research Fellow with the Alliance for Lifetime Income and Retirement Income Institute. He is a professor of practice at the American College of Financial Services and past director of the Retirement Income Certified Professional® (RICP®) designation program. He holds a doctorate in economics from Princeton University and has published more than sixty peer-reviewed research articles in a wide variety of academic and practitioner journals. He is a contributor to Forbes, Advisor Perspectives, and an Expert Panelist for the Wall Street Journal. Wade is the author of four books, Retirement Planning Guidebook: Navigating the Important Decisions for Retirement Success, Safety-First Retirement Planning: An Integrated Approach for a Worry-Free Retirement, How Much Can I Spend in Retirement? A Guide to Investment-Based Retirement Income Strategies, and Reverse Mortgages: How to Use Reverse Mortgages to Secure Your Retirement.

From the Back Cover

The most comprehensive and well-written personal finance guide ever published; belongs on the front shelf of every financial planner, and of everyone serious about not only their financial future but also their well-being.
WILLIAM BERNSTEIN, Ph.D., M.D., Co-Principal at Efficient Frontier Advisors and author of best-selling books including The Four Pillars of Investing

Dr. Wade Pfau shows us why the concept of retirement is different for everyone. This definitive guidebook shows you how to recognize the strategies that will work best for you and your family. The anxiety that typically comes with making difficult long-term financial choices will be replaced with confidence because virtually every possible retirement planning option is explored - without bias. To me, that is critical. You will finally be able to take what you learn here and apply it to your personal comfort level, whether that involves taking more risk, looking for more safety, or somewhere in between. This retirement planning masterpiece is the first step towards a successful retirement plan!
ED SLOTT, CPA, Retirement expert and author, Professor of Practice at The American College of Financial Services, and founder of IRAHelp.com

Pfau's new Guidebook seeks to be a self-contained, comprehensive guide to retirement planning. And that's exactly what it is. From Medicare, to Social Security, to portfolio management, to tax planning, the book provides the facts that you need and walks you through the important decisions to be made. When the subject matter is complicated, Pfau's explanations remain clear and direct. When there are multiple reasonable options to consider, Pfau provides a frank discussion of the pros and cons of each. I wish this book had been available when I was beginning my study of retirement planning.
MIKE PIPER, CPA, Founder of ObliviousInvestor.com

Wade Pfau is one of the most gifted retirement researchers in the modern era, and his Retirement Planning Guidebook is his most comprehensive work to date. A "must-read" for anyone within 5 years of retirement, this book provides everything you need to know to ensure you're ready to live the retirement of your dreams.
FRITZ GILBERT, Founder of TheRetirementManifesto.com and author of Keys to a Successful Retirement

Dr. Pfau is a preeminent retirement researcher and consummate scholar. Yet, he possesses the rare trait of remaining accessible to a wide audience. Dr. Pfau's Retirement Guide is incisive, instructive, and actionable. Retirement planning is the most complex aspect of the planning process. Dr. Pfau's applied research yielding the Retirement Income Style Awareness (RISA) framework offers a new diagnostic and directive tool to cut through the myriad complexities of making decisions in the retirement process. Whether you are in the do-it-yourself retiree community or a retirement focused advisor, you will gain greater knowledge and understanding that can foster better long-term retirement outcomes.
JASON K. BRANNING, CFP®, Founder of Branning Wealth Management and co-author of Modern Retirement Theory

Edition details

• Publisher: Retirement Researcher Media
• Publication date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1945640170
• ISBN 13: 9781945640179
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 507