Customer Reviews

Getting Started in A Financially Secure Retirement: Pre- and Post-Retirement Planning in a Time of Great Uncertainty

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Hebeler's writing style is easy to read.

I have read over 200 books on investing/financial planning, and I would put this book into the top 10....with regards to general financial planning information.

Hebeler covers all the basics including saving, investing in index funds, and Social Security.

I particularly liked his list of Lessons Learned:

1. Look hard for low costs and taxes.
2. Don't invest in anything that eats, floats, drills, or is appraised with a magnifying glass or scale.
3. Avoid partnerships and tax gimmicks
4. Be wary of someone who wants to manage your money
5. You have heard of someone who has a foolproof method
6. Don't buy individual stocks and don't time the market

As a general intro to investing, you really can't go wrong with this book.

To compliment this book.....I would suggest a couple good books on index fund investing and asset allocation.


The Richest Man in Babylon
Bogle on Mutual Funds: New Perspectives for the Intelligent Investor
The Millionaire Next Door
The Four Pillars of Investing: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio
A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing, Ninth Edition
The Coffeehouse Investor: How to Build Wealth, Ignore Wall Street, and Get On With Your Life
The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing

This Financial non-fiction reads like a novel. An easy read that is extremely informative and useful for planning and executing your retirement. Readers will benefit by the many thousands of man hours or research and analysis that have gone into providing this resource. The many different types of investment are reviewed and the real world effects on growth by inflation, taxes and fees are illustrated. The book also provides much relevant information about all the relevant topics surrounding retirement planning, such as IRAs, tax strategies, Social Security, pensions etc. Chapter 2 titled "Be Aware of the Environment" is very eye opening and relevant in today's world. This book is very easy to use as a resource and provides many clear Appendixes designed to allow the reader to make some simple calculations to either check the present status of planning or to run simulations based on changes or differences in assumptions. Entertaining as well as informative.

The author is a designer of a website dedicated to retirement planning and that shows in his book. He has a detailed knowledge of what it takes to build and later utilize a nest egg, and spells it out in plain language for the reader.

What I liked about the book: The plethora of information about creating my own nest egg and how to preserve said nest egg, and eventually how to tap the nest egg. It did these things better than any book I have ever read.

What I didn't like about the book: Some of the charts were way too complex and detailed. They were nearly impossible to decipher.

All in all it was one of the better books about retirement I have read. I also finished reading the FUNNIEST book about retirement I've read, "Race You To The Fountain of Youth."Race You to the Fountain of Youth: I'm Not Dead Yet (But parts of me are going fast)

As a visual learner, I thought the book contained very useful, informative charts, tables, graphs and easy to digest chunks of info in well labeled boxes. Sitting at a lunch table at work, we all talk about our futures, and this book is a great base for our thinking and planning-- even as our lives evolve and the thinking and planning changes. This book is divided into logical chunks so information is easy to find for a non-accountant mind like mine :) Thank you for making this resource available. Linda Underhill

Mr. Hebeler has dedicated his retirement years to helping others. He is also enjoying those years. He has found that happy medium and he wants to share his sucess with others so they too may enjoy the later years.

He is someone who has walked the walk and talked the talk. He has made it so that we can understand how to make our money work for us. He has enabled us to take charge of our money and not rely on someone else. Which in this day and age, it is so important to be aware ourselves, where and what our money is doing for us. Thank you Mr. Hebeler for sharing what works for you with us.

Planning on retiring someday or already retired, the information in this book will help you use your money in the most intelligent way possible. Of all the "retirement books" available, you will find information and planning tools in this book that are not found elsewhere. Since we are all concerned about having enough money in retirement, it makes sense to do the best we can to save, invest and spend money for our maximum benefit. The information in this unique book gives us the tools to do that.

One of the best books on retirement I've read, and probably the best regarding financial preparation. Since it was written before the financial crisis started in 2008, it was prophetic concerning the real estate bust. The only area where I doubted the advice was in the discussion of annuities. I agree with most of it; however, information from other sources concerning inflation-adjusted annuities makes me skeptical of their benefit/cost. The information on reserves separate from retirement savings was outstanding. The discussion of long-term health care was great too, especially the specific advice for those in different circumstances.

Henry Hebeler is by far the best retirement author ever. His knowledge and insight are unparalleled and here he provides his help and spreadsheets so you can be properly prepared to have a financially successful retirement.

After giving each of our four adult children copies, I've now got comments back from them. They said they appreciated the many suggestions to help them save more as well as the simple calculations to know how much to save for retirement and when to start Social Security. A son-in-law said it was very easy to read--more like a novel than a financial book. A daughter said it was very good from a woman's perspective. Another daughter advised a neighbor to a copy as well.

Lots of good information... I needed a lot of quit time and a notebook to help me absorb the information... I also purchased the AARP Retirement guide...Have not read it yet but have flipped pages....