Customer Reviews

The Hard Times Guide to Retirement Security: Practical Strategies for Money, Work, and Living (Bloomberg)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The book is dog-eared with yellow and green highlight markings on just about every other page. There are lengthy passages that I have underlined in ink, and my scribbling appears adjacent to page columns where reminder notations are marked boldly with! or ? Within the book there are post-it notes from my wife that say gWhy havenft we done this?h and gWe need to think about this Y now! About a dozen paper clips identify pages of special importance.

Although we have had the book for only a few weeks, it looks like an old and ragged pass-it-along book read by dozens of people before us. Books like you might find at a garage sale. But thatfs not the case. Only my wife and I have read the book. We have devoured every page of the bookfs contents as if we were cramming for a college final exam on economics. And, thankfully, we are better off for it.

The book I refer to is The Hard Times Guide to Retirement Security: Practical Strategies for Money, Work and Living, written by Mark Miller.

This past April I attended a conference where Mr. Miller was a featured speaker. His presentation really hit home. I pigeon-holed him afterwards during a break to ask a few questions about my personal finances and retirement options. He was very generous with his time and said hefd send a copy of his book for me to review. I took him up on the offer.

I am 62 and semi-retired; my wife is 63 and also semi-retired. While we have done some planning with regard to our retirement, wefve clearly not done enough. Mr. Millerfs book, tough, pointed us in the right direction and impelled us to think and act. It was a clarion call to action, for sure.

Owing to the retirement planning advice Mr. Miller discusses in his book, some of the issues we confront as soon-to-be full-time retirees we have already taken action on.

These actions include:
Outliving our assets YY God willing, of course, we hope to live another 25 years. We took some steps with our financial advisor to calculate our needs well beyond the next 25 years.

Housing YY The book has actually helped us decide on what to do about the second home we own in New York.

Healthcare YY The rising cost of healthcare is an issue every American family grapples with. We now have a strategy in place with regard to should a catastrophic illness befall either me or my wife.

Work YY We both have pledged to each other, two more years and out. But what helped us reach this decision was factoring in 1. determining if we will outlive our assets; 2. resolving the housing issue; and 3. addressing future healthcare costs. The book really helped us connect the dots.

Timely, targeted and thoughtful, The Hard Times Guide to Retirement Security: Practical Strategies for Money, Work, and Living is an awesome primer for Boomers and Seniors whether they are facing hard times or not.

I am grateful for having met Mr. Miller, and for his efforts in writing a guide that I believe is worthy of consideration by any one that needs and or wants eretirement security.

If you don't pay much attention to finances or saving for retirement, then this is a good book for providing good basic "no nonsense" information. For those who do know good financial management for themselves or who have been thinking about retirement and what it will look like, this is a good book for summarizing what you know in one place and providing references for further information.

It is also written very well. It doesn't talk down to the reader nor does the reader need a technical background to understand what the author is trying to say. On that score, very well done!

Where I was disappointed, however, was in the fact that I was expecting something more (and maybe that's just me). But the title "Hard Times Guide to Retirement" led me to think this book was going to have some really cutting edge and innovative ideas for baby boomers during this particular time in the nation's history. But in reality, the information isn't really slanted toward now as a recessionary period. This book wouldn't look much different than if we were in boom times right now and the book had been titled "Boom Times Guide to Retirement." From that perspective, I was disappointed because I didn't feel the book lived up to the slant given it by the title.

Also, the book is very light on advice. It is like a primer more than anything. It tells you what the situation is with different things like Social Security, annuities, etc. But it doesn't say much about individual type situations or as noted above about these being hard times.

Having said all of that, I'm glad that I bought the book. I've found it easy and interesting to read. And it does summarize everything in one place and provide additional references to look things up. And I did learn about "file and suspend" with Social Security benefits. That was something I didn't know and learning about was worth the price of the book itself.

This book does provide some basic information but it does not give much discussion as to how to manage retirement money when one does not have a defined benefit plan. It gives some basic information but it misses as it does not cover a lot of issues with a defined contribution plan. It does address issues such as working longer than one thinks one might to avoid running out of money. Overall a good read for those a few years from retirement but it is not a comprehensive guide in this area such as books by Quinn and Orman are for money management overall.

Mark Miller has created a comprehensive and yet fast guide to the choices and strategies people need for retirement amid the current economic difficulties. As a longtime business journalist and a reader of retirement advice, I found considerable new information, especially on longevity, career choices and the ins and outs of social security.

Whilst a lot of Mark's advice is specific to the US there is a lot that is applicable to the UK. As Europe enters its "Austerity Era" there has never been a more important time to make a comprehensive plan for life following your last job. I guess we once called this period `retirement' but for many of us it is the beginning of a whole new phase of life that might or might not include work.
Not only has Mark amassed a lot of facts that cover all aspects of retirement he presents them in an extremely readable way. If you don't want to read all of the detail you can use the book as a comprehensive checklist of all of the topics that you should be considering.

I found this book very helpful. Miller's book gives very practical advice for those of us in our fifties who need a broad array of information just to check out the possibilities for our futures. He expands the discussion beyond investments to work and life issues and puts it all the context of our current economic climate and prospects for the future. Invaluable resource.

Mark Miller has long been an important voice for anyone thinking about retirement or the years formerly known as retirement. And now he has written an indispensable guide on how to think about financing this evolving stage of life. If you start to zone out when you hear words like pension, annuity, or 401k, you'll appreciate this book for its clear, straightforward language and for its comforting tone. I'll be recommending it often.

Mark gives you the information to move forward "with smarts" into retirement. No shallow, one-size-fits all answers, but clear explanation of what you need to know today about retirement. I am tired of the bad retirement, gimmick books that promise wealth, happiness and more in 3 easy steps. Mark's books presents the areas of most importance and gives you all the background you need to find your own best steps toward a healthier retirement. I especially appreciated the chapters on annuities (always a mystery to me), How to get the most from social security, and the coverage of health care in retirement. A must for all of us, fifty/sixty somethings who are still paying for college (ours or our kids) and need to be more serious about the next phase of our lives.

Mark Miller provided me with a wake up call to realize the inadequacy of my own not fully baked retirement planning. I can point to two specific areas of advice he provides in the areas of Long Term Care and Annuities that I plan to follow up upon after reading his book. If you are concerned with the scope of your retirement plan, and whether it may be unduly influenced by advice that you receive from brokers and experts with a bias, it is a real relief to have a "tell it like it is" resource such as this clear and direct guide available to call upon.

Looking for advice on how to sell your 50-something self in the current challenging
job market? This is the book for you. "The Hard Times Guide" is chock full of information on how to prepare yourself financially for retirement, delivered
in a conversational yet no-nonsense tone that makes you think, "I can do this!" But even more useful to me was the
savvy advice on encore careers. If you're in the same boat, start with p. 135: "Rule No. 1: Package Yourself as the Solution."