Retire Right : The Ultimate Guide to the Rest of Your Life

Rating:
Summary: A comprehensive guide to planning one's retirement
Review: The New Retirement: The Ultimate Guide To The Rest Of Your Life is a comprehensive guide to planning all aspects of one's ideal retirement. Packed with virtual tours of the best cities in which to live (both in America and abroad), ways to spend one's free time, financial planning, mortgages and investments, adult-only communities, tips for buying and selling one's home, physical and psychological wellness, second career suggestions, and once more, The New Retirement offers plain-terms solid advice in response to perplexing questions and gripping dilemmas, whether financial, emotional, or family-related. Highly recommended for anyone nearing the end of their term in their chosen career.


Rating:
Summary: A Good Start but you have to do your own plan
Review: There are times of change in your life. The first day of school, the last day of school, marriage, birth of the first kid. On these days, what comes after will simply be different than what went before. Retirement is another one of those days.

I went through many of the decisions discussed by the authors just a few years ago.

Was it the right time to retire? In retrospect, yes, hands down YES!

Should you relocate, and if so, where? I made a list of what I wanted in a retirement location and I spent six months driving around looking for a place. My criteria were different than the ones the authors visited, but my decision just had to please me, not the broader reading public. They down rate areas that have snow. I down rate areas that get too hot and humid.

How can you make sure your money will last as long as you do? You can't, you just have to do the best planning you can. A 1929 like depression can really ruin your plans.

What kind of lifestyle will best suit your retirement years? Well, I really enjoy reading and then reviewing books.

My summary of this book is that it is a great start for focusing your thoughts about a future retirement. Read it, use their approach to make your own decisions and good luck.

Rating:
Summary: 100 stars - awesome
Review: This book states that, "This is not your parents retirement guide". They're right.

This book covers everything, I was amazed at some of the things they thought to include.

The amount of information contained was a little overwhelming so I'll just quote one of their lists:

Virtual tours of the best cities to live, both in the US and abroad (all cities include info on, who lives there, what's the cost, what's to do, where are the jobs' where are the doctors, where are some notable neighborhoods, how do I pursue lifelong education, strengths, weakness, fyi)
Beyond the gates at the newest planned communities (that's "planned" not gated)
Niche lifestyles, from golf communities to hotel living
Traveling with the RV
How to spend your new free time
Financial planning (very detailed)
Mortages and investments
Social security and inflation
Tax considerations
Lifelong learning opportunities (detailed!)
Goal setting
Travel opportunities, from courier flights to home exchanges
Traveling with grandkids
Emotional cues that indicate you're ready to take the plunge
Adult-only communities
How much money do you need to retire (detailed with worksheets)
Should you retire early?
Working - is it right for you
Tips for buying and selling your home
Estate planning and advance directives (sample forms are provided)
Physical and psychological wellness
Dealing with boomeranging kids and aging parents
Coping with leisure sickness and othere surprises
One home or two
Second career suggestions (detailed and varied)
and much, much more

There was a good section on health, diet and alternative and allopathic medicine. The sections on volunteerism could have been a lot more informative. In the resource section there were recommended reading and web sites for every chapter. The shortest chapters recommended reading was 12 books many had 20 or more in addition to web sites. If you believe in reincarnation this information could carry you for multiple lives. I'm not being facetious - there is an amazing amount of information in this book.