4 must-read retirement planning books

Planning for retirement can feel overwhelming. As with so many other stages of life — college, marriage, parenthood — you can try your best to prepare for retirement, but you won’t know what it’s really like until you’re in it.

That said, reading up on it can help you prepare. (A failure to prepare is preparation for failure, and all that.) These books share the lessons of others who went before, in the hopes that you can repeat their successes and avoid their mistakes.

In that spirit, here are four retirement planning books that can help you get started.

How To Invest for Retirement: A Simple Path To Retiring Rich, Independent, and Free by Anthony S. Park

If you’re looking for an easy-to-follow beginners’ guide, then this book is for you. How To Invest for Retirement details what it takes to save enough for retirement, and achieve financial independence. It covers financial concepts and tools such as:

• The time value of money
• Index funds
• Compounding interest
• Where to invest your money

One key piece of advice: Rather than saving money for retirement with a savings account (whose yield often fails to keep up with the pace of inflation), consider an index fund — basically, an account that owns stock in multiple companies, as a way of tying your financial growth to the overall growth of the market.

How Much Money Do I Need To Retire? Uncommon Financial Planning Wisdom for a Stress-Free Retirement by Todd R. Tresidder

Todd R. Tresidder is a former hedge fund manager who was a part of the traditional financial system — until he decided to leave it at 35 to help turn it on its head. If you like to do things a little bit differently, this book will show you the limitations of traditional financial retirement strategies.

Todd understands that humans aren’t machines and the world isn’t static. That means that not only are you unlikely to have the same wants and needs by the time you retire, but the world is also bound to be completely different by then too. That’s why this book offers an unconventional roadmap to help you understand what it really takes to retire before finding your retirement number.

Once you have found your magic number — that is, how much money you’d like to have socked away at retirement — Todd suggests how to optimize your lifestyle to retire earlier. Traditional retirement plans will simply encourage you to work more, save more, and retire as late as possible. However, strategies like seeking side hustles and relocating to an area with a low cost of living can help drastically improve your retirement outcome, thus allowing you to retire earlier.

Retirementology by Gregory Salsbury

A witty book packed with personal anecdotes and concrete advice, Retirementology is a no-nonsense guide, particularly for those who feel like they’ve made a few financial mistakes in the past. After all, spending, saving, and investing are equal parts psychological and rational.

Retirementology covers the emotional aspects of retirement and will help you identify what goals and values align with your ideal retirement scenario. By following the advice in this book, you’ll learn possibilities for finding your best version of retirement and creating a post-workforce life filled with purpose and meaning.

This book also covers common financial planning mistakes, and the essential lessons to learn from them. The best part is that you won’t have to make them yourself to learn the lesson.

The New Rules of Retirement by Robert C. Carlson

Packed with an enormous amount of information, this book will walk you through the most basic aspects of how to plan for retirement — including what to do after you’ve retired so you can maximize your financial future.

In this book, you can expect to learn:

• How much you need to save for retirement
• How to deal with threats to your retirement
• How to invest your money before and during retirement
• How to remain calm during periods of economic downturn
• How to prepare for any unexpected circumstances during retirement

This book also offers advice on financial moves you should consider during retirement, like claiming Social Security benefits and purchasing annuities.

Find out how a life insurance policy fits in your retirement goals

Reading financial planning books is one of the best ways to get ahead of the game when it comes to meeting your long-term financial goals.

So is getting an affordable life insurance policy. If you die while covered, your loved ones will receive a lump sum death benefit payment (tax-free!) that can help them pay for burial expenses, essentials like food and housing, tuition and more. This financial protection also provides peace of mind for you. Start your journey by getting a free online life insurance quote today.

Disclosure: 

Haven Life Insurance Agency (Haven Life) does not provide tax, legal or investment advice. This material has been prepared for informational purposes only, and is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for, tax, legal, or investment advice. You should consult your own tax, legal, and investment advisors before engaging in any transaction. [Individuals involved in the estate planning process should work with an estate planning team, including their own personal legal or tax counsel].