Customer Reviews

Retire on Less Than You Think, Revised Edition: The New York Times Guide to Planning Your Financial Future

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

The basic premise of the book is that you don't need a retirement nest egg large enough to provide you with 70-80% of your present income to retire comfortably. This is contrary to the common advice found in the marketplace and the author attacks this as hype. I found his commentary insightful and thought provoking as I had bought into the believe that you needed at least 70% of your present income otherwise you would be stuck eating Alpo. I agree with the author's basic point that if you live in an expensive metropolitan area (e.g. Manhattan, Chicago, SF) and are willing to relocate to a less expensive area you can retire comfortably on a modest income. I agree with some commentators' criticism that the author spends time making his own political commentary on Social Security and healthcare, but this does not detract from the rest of the book. I wish the book had gone into more detail on some of the subjects covered, but a reader can continue researching various topics by looking at the websites recommended in the book. Unless you are "set for life," I would recommend that you take a look at this book. After reading it, I am rethinking my retirement plans and am not nearly as nervous of making my retirement work as I was before.

This work focuses your attention on the amount of money needed
during retirement-taking into consideration the
best places to retire and control of unnecessary expenditures.
Bellington, Washington, Iowa City and Sarasota, Florida are
cited as preferred retirement communities. Strategies to retire
slightly later can yield significant benefits in the size of
the monthly income resulting from social security. In some cases,
a delay of even 3-4 years in retirement can result in getting
a 50% increase in the monthly allotment. The author recommends
to simplify life in order to maximize the benefit from your
monthly income. This book is an excellent supplemental reference
for your retirement planning. As such, it is well worth the price.

This book is truly a new perspective than the one you hear from the financial community. Fred Brock debunks the myths that it takes millions of dollars to retire. Every financial website has a calculator to tell you how much you have to save and invest to have millions to retire. This just isn't practical for most people. He shows that if you own a home with a 30-yr. mortgage, by the time you retire it should be paid off. So, there is no longer a mortgage payment which is usually your greatest expense. Also, if you move to a city that is one of the best places to retire (he gives the web address to find these cities), the money you have will go much further while maintaining the same or better standard of living. Also, healthcare is a concern for retirees. He directs you to ehealthinsurance.com to compare rates. I did this and changed my insurance plan and am saving $50/month. This book is an eye-opener for anyone planning to retire but after reading the book you should feel relieved that you can really can retire on less than you think.

There is a little useful information in this book, but the main advice is to sell your home in an area where property values are very high and relocate to a less expensive area. This is repeated throughout the sections of the book. If you already live in one of the less-expensive areas and do not have a large house to sell,this advice is little help to you. The author advises things like buying a used car and driving it for many years; haven't most people figured this out on their own? There is a lot of filler in the form of stories about people who illustrate the author's view, many of whom are "indulging their passion for bicycling" in retirement.

What a refreshing take on retirement! Instead of retirement plans that make life wonderful for Wall Street brokers and mutual fund companies, Mr. Brock, gasp, has some serious ideas here for potential retirees. He shows how you don't need as much to retire as the fund companies would like you to think you need. And why would they like you to think that? Because they make money off of your investments. This book also puts the so-called Social Security crisis in perspective, showing how there really isn't a crisis at all. The system is rock solid for years to come. (Who would gain from privatizing Social Security? Wall Street.) One of the amazing things about this book, with all these "radical" notions, is that it is written by a columnist for the establishment - The New York Times. Buy this book and learn how to get out of the rat race a little bit earlier.

Fred Brock's book is essential reading for babyboomers who want to retire early. It challenges conventional thinking about how much money is required for a comfortable retirement. The chapter on coping with health insurance is especially helpful.
Many people fail to anticipate that their living costs are going to shrink as their children become independent, their mortgages are paid off and work related expenses go away. That's the message of the book: That you don't need as much as financial services advisers often suggest you will need.

I was sorely tempted to give the book 5 stars in an attempt to offset those who gave it 1 star because they disagree with Brock's political lean, but I decided to just let it be self-standing. But is there really a book of this sort that is so worthless that it deserves only 1 star?

Having said that, this book has a huge hunk of material that simply doesn't belong. Most if not all of the health insurance and social security flogging should, if Brock really wants to make the arguments he does, be sequestered into a separate book. There are a lot of good points made elsewhere, and useful material--I, like some other reviewers, have read other books where some of the same ideas turn up, but I don't assume everybody reads as much on the same topics. So, as a single volume exposure to those things it's pretty good. Where Brock does the reader no favors is in the sophistry concerning social security and health insurance. As in many things, the most conservative way is the best in planning for uncertain outcomes. It would have in my opinion have been better for Brock to say, "Personally, I believe social security is here to stay, but here's some considerations in case YOU don't." Rather, he goes on at painful (and I think, misleading by omission) length to create readers who will resist attempts to fix social security. I don't want to tutorial here but if you take a look at Alan Greenspan's last social security fix 20 years ago, Scott Burns' DALLAS MORNING NEWS columns and his recent book, you will see that trouble is brewing at the social security administration (which, by the way, freely admits they are in trouble starting as early as 2010). Ditto, the fact that people use fake IDs to go to Canada for care may be true and may be interesting, but it doesn't disprove any of the other disturbing charges about Canada's health care system. There is a rich literature on this as well from other sources, and they don't support Brock...

Basically, I am suggesting that roughly half the book credibly suggests tips for preparing financially for retirement, and the other half should be used as a starting point for study on insurance and social security reform, but NOT as proof that you will have either one when you get there...

This isn't a coherent book for overcoming your fears of retiring without enough money. Its a hasty and crude assemblage of Brock's "Seniority" columns from the New York Times. Indeed, the copyright is in the name of the newspaper instead of the author's.

Look at the book's cover. It pushes the image that we're all timid little sparrows nervously watching eggs in our nests. If I read "nestegg" and "golden years" one more time, I'll need to excuse myself to retch in the hedges.

I believe healthcare is a mess and "private accounts" won't solve Social Security's future troubles. But like other readers, I object to material that supports one side of these issues in a general book on retirement planning.

For all that, the book's premise is absolutely correct: You don't really need 70 to 80 percent of preretirement income investments advisors say you do. Keep looking; there must be a better book than this out there.

Fred Brock has offered those of us facing the supposedly bleak future of retirement without a couple of million bucks in the bank a gift that is worth considerably more than the price of the book -- a little peace of mind. As he has done for years in his New York Times column, Fred Brock reminds us that we aren't really headed for a cat food diet if we just do a little thinking about the real ingredients in the recipe for a good retirement. Read it and weep, Wall Streeet!

This one's a keeper, unlike 95% of the retirement planning books I've read lately. Mr. Brock brings common sense and a wealth of knowledge to this subject. The author of a newspaper column on older Americans, he's been paying attention to this stuff for years. This book provides helpful information on health care, housing, taxes, and Social Security. I learned a lot from just the chapter on health insurance - and I've been reading widely on retirement issues for several months.

Readers' advisory: Don't read this book if it will make you uncomfortable to face the fact that Canadians aren't flooding illegally across U.S. borders to take advantage of our so-called "free market" health care system instead of their government system. Also avoid it if you don't want to know that the Social Security system is in fact not broken - but that Wall Street wants to convince us it is so that Wall Street can (surprise!) "manage" it, and not so incidentally extract from it billions of dollars in fees. Finally, if it will pain you to realize that our politicans are constantly yammering about a nonexistent "Social Security crisis" while keeping their heads buried deep in the sand when it comes to fixing the REAL national health care/insurance crisis - run from this one. You won't like those parts and it might make you grouchy.