Page 1 of 3

Retirement income strategies - a book at bedtime

Posted: December 1st, 2019, 9:24 am
by Gilgongo
I see this book on Amazon is quite highly reviewed. Has anyone here read it? I thought I might give it a go.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/198 ... 1OLE&psc=1

Incidentally, as the blurb notes: "Most people never had to worry about how to convert their retirement savings into income for the rest of their lives. Today's low annuity rates, closure of increasing numbers of defined benefit schemes and the Pension Freedoms, introduced by the UK Government in 2015, ripped up the retirement income planning rulebook."

I'm thinking of retiring in about 5 years, but given the fact that my wife and I have investments in various vehicles, Pension Freedoms has made me realise that there's a lot of complexity for me to understand before I do. I don't feel I know enough about it all yet to even frame useful questions on TMF - but would this be the board to post such questions from time to time?

It almost feels like there should be a separate board for this topic as more of us come to deal with the issues. :geek:

G

Re: Retirement income strategies - a book at bedtime

Posted: December 1st, 2019, 10:23 am
by OLTB
Hi Gilgongo - I have this book, have read it and highly recommend it. I have had to read it a couple of times as there are various strategies - it is comprehensive and backed up by a lot of historical modelling. Money well spent in my eyes.

Cheers, OLTB.

Re: Retirement income strategies - a book at bedtime

Posted: December 1st, 2019, 1:54 pm
by ursaminortaur
Gilgongo wrote:I see this book on Amazon is quite highly reviewed. Has anyone here read it? I thought I might give it a go.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/198 ... 1OLE&psc=1

Incidentally, as the blurb notes: "Most people never had to worry about how to convert their retirement savings into income for the rest of their lives. Today's low annuity rates, closure of increasing numbers of defined benefit schemes and the Pension Freedoms, introduced by the UK Government in 2015, ripped up the retirement income planning rulebook."

I'm thinking of retiring in about 5 years, but given the fact that my wife and I have investments in various vehicles, Pension Freedoms has made me realise that there's a lot of complexity for me to understand before I do. I don't feel I know enough about it all yet to even frame useful questions on TMF - but would this be the board to post such questions from time to time?

It almost feels like there should be a separate board for this topic as more of us come to deal with the issues. :geek:

G


Such questions can probably be posted to both this board and also to the "Pensions - Practical problems" board

https://www.lemonfool.co.uk/viewforum.php?f=17

Re: Retirement income strategies - a book at bedtime

Posted: December 1st, 2019, 2:23 pm
by Dod101
Gilgongo wrote:I see this book on Amazon is quite highly reviewed. Has anyone here read it? I thought I might give it a go.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/198 ... 1OLE&psc=1

Incidentally, as the blurb notes: "Most people never had to worry about how to convert their retirement savings into income for the rest of their lives. Today's low annuity rates, closure of increasing numbers of defined benefit schemes and the Pension Freedoms, introduced by the UK Government in 2015, ripped up the retirement income planning rulebook."

I'm thinking of retiring in about 5 years, but given the fact that my wife and I have investments in various vehicles, Pension Freedoms has made me realise that there's a lot of complexity for me to understand before I do. I don't feel I know enough about it all yet to even frame useful questions on TMF - but would this be the board to post such questions from time to time?

It almost feels like there should be a separate board for this topic as more of us come to deal with the issues. :geek:


I should think that this is the right Board and the book sounds interesting although I have not read it.

Let me reassure you and others in the same situation. I worked abroad for most of my adult life and instead of my employer providing me with a guaranteed pension for life, I, like my expat colleagues, was given a lump sum, what in my day was called a provident fund, maybe still is. So I had my own 'pension freedom' whether I liked it or not. We were given no info or guidance, just paid out and goodbye, have a good retirement. After taking a few months to get myself sorted out in what to me was a foreign country (the UK) I set about trying to invest my PF. The only thing I knew was that I was not going to hand it over to some insurance company in exchange for an annuity. After a lot of trial and error (I had never heard of The Motley Fool and The Lemon Fool did not exist then) I settled in to a pattern with my investment portfolio and now almost exactly 25 years later I have much more capital than I started with and have a good income. I live entirely off my dividends plus the State pension (which I use as a travel fund)

I have been in retirement through the dot com boom and bust in 2000/1 and the financial crisis of 2008/9 with no problems to speak of. I am self taught if that is the right expression, conservative I think and a patient, long term investor. There are a lot of things I would have done differently, but that applies to life in general, not just to investing.

My advice would be to read as much as you can (these Boards will undoubtedly help), but not to worry too much. You will develop an investment philosophy in time although it will probably cost you one or two investment mistakes to do so.

Good luck and do not waste a lot of time worrying about it.

Dod

Re: Retirement income strategies - a book at bedtime

Posted: December 1st, 2019, 4:17 pm
by Quint
Gilgongo wrote:I see this book on Amazon is quite highly reviewed. Has anyone here read it? I thought I might give it a go.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/198 ... 1OLE&psc=1

Incidentally, as the blurb notes: "Most people never had to worry about how to convert their retirement savings into income for the rest of their lives. Today's low annuity rates, closure of increasing numbers of defined benefit schemes and the Pension Freedoms, introduced by the UK Government in 2015, ripped up the retirement income planning rulebook."

I'm thinking of retiring in about 5 years, but given the fact that my wife and I have investments in various vehicles, Pension Freedoms has made me realise that there's a lot of complexity for me to understand before I do. I don't feel I know enough about it all yet to even frame useful questions on TMF - but would this be the board to post such questions from time to time?

It almost feels like there should be a separate board for this topic as more of us come to deal with the issues. :geek:

G


I think i am going to get a copy of this book. I hit my FIRE goal nearly two years ago at 50 and the wife at 55. While i have our portfolio where we want them with a draw down plan in place. As we are not yet actively drawing from the pensions it is always nice to have a regular review and sanity check my plans, i think this book may be worth a read. I have a copy of Living off your Money which is good but has a heavy bias to US retirees.

The good news from my experience is five years is about the right time to really get your head around how you need to structure your investments and fill in any gaps in your knowledge. Just as important though is having a personal plan in place for what you wish to do and what you need to fund it, and just as important how much flexibility you can tolerate in your plans. It goes without saying you need a good handle on what your outgoings are and how this may change in retirement.

I do like the quote in the description of this book, "retirement income planning used to be so simple" it sure did, hand over the results of a lifetime of saving to an insurance company put your feet up and spend the rest of your life getting ripped off.

No more, George Osborne sits right in the top group of my hero list.

Must go now as i have just entered the last week of my 37 night diving trip to the Dutch Caribbean.

At least we will be home in time to do our bit to try and stop Comrade Corbyn getting in to Downing street :D

Re: Retirement income strategies - a book at bedtime

Posted: December 1st, 2019, 7:13 pm
by Dod101
Since I have received a gratifying number of thanks (the post was just my experience) can I add that I really do not think you need to worry about plans and spreadsheets and so on. If you enjoy doing that sort of thing fine, but I certainly did nothing like that when I retired. Maybe a couple of scratches on the back of a notepad (I do not smoke) but that was it. Experiencing trial and error was how I got through the early years and no amount of planning will change that.

Dod

Re: Retirement income strategies - a book at bedtime

Posted: December 1st, 2019, 8:27 pm
by BrummieDave
Dod101 wrote:Since I have received a gratifying number of thanks (the post was just my experience) can I add that I really do not think you need to worry about plans and spreadsheets and so on. If you enjoy doing that sort of thing fine, but I certainly did nothing like that when I retired. Maybe a couple of scratches on the back of a notepad (I do not smoke) but that was it. Experiencing trial and error was how I got through the early years and no amount of planning will change that.

Dod


As one of those who 'thanked' you, not that I always agree with you mind, you should write the book perhaps, not read it! :)

Re: Retirement income strategies - a book at bedtime

Posted: December 1st, 2019, 9:00 pm
by Walrus101
Dod101 wrote:
Gilgongo wrote:I see this book on Amazon is quite highly reviewed. Has anyone here read it? I thought I might give it a go.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/198 ... 1OLE&psc=1

Incidentally, as the blurb notes: "Most people never had to worry about how to convert their retirement savings into income for the rest of their lives. Today's low annuity rates, closure of increasing numbers of defined benefit schemes and the Pension Freedoms, introduced by the UK Government in 2015, ripped up the retirement income planning rulebook."

I'm thinking of retiring in about 5 years, but given the fact that my wife and I have investments in various vehicles, Pension Freedoms has made me realise that there's a lot of complexity for me to understand before I do. I don't feel I know enough about it all yet to even frame useful questions on TMF - but would this be the board to post such questions from time to time?

It almost feels like there should be a separate board for this topic as more of us come to deal with the issues. :geek:


I should think that this is the right Board and the book sounds interesting although I have not read it.

Let me reassure you and others in the same situation. I worked abroad for most of my adult life and instead of my employer providing me with a guaranteed pension for life, I, like my expat colleagues, was given a lump sum, what in my day was called a provident fund, maybe still is. So I had my own 'pension freedom' whether I liked it or not. We were given no info or guidance, just paid out and goodbye, have a good retirement. After taking a few months to get myself sorted out in what to me was a foreign country (the UK) I set about trying to invest my PF. The only thing I knew was that I was not going to hand it over to some insurance company in exchange for an annuity. After a lot of trial and error (I had never heard of The Motley Fool and The Lemon Fool did not exist then) I settled in to a pattern with my investment portfolio and now almost exactly 25 years later I have much more capital than I started with and have a good income. I live entirely off my dividends plus the State pension (which I use as a travel fund)

I have been in retirement through the dot com boom and bust in 2000/1 and the financial crisis of 2008/9 with no problems to speak of. I am self taught if that is the right expression, conservative I think and a patient, long term investor. There are a lot of things I would have done differently, but that applies to life in general, not just to investing.

My advice would be to read as much as you can (these Boards will undoubtedly help), but not to worry too much. You will develop an investment philosophy in time although it will probably cost you one or two investment mistakes to do so.

Good luck and do not waste a lot of time worrying about it.

Dod


I don't know how much spare time you have Dod, but I'd be very interested in reading about your experiences

Re: Retirement income strategies - a book at bedtime

Posted: December 1st, 2019, 9:39 pm
by Dod101
BrummieDave wrote:
Dod101 wrote:Since I have received a gratifying number of thanks (the post was just my experience) can I add that I really do not think you need to worry about plans and spreadsheets and so on. If you enjoy doing that sort of thing fine, but I certainly did nothing like that when I retired. Maybe a couple of scratches on the back of a notepad (I do not smoke) but that was it. Experiencing trial and error was how I got through the early years and no amount of planning will change that.

Dod


As one of those who 'thanked' you, not that I always agree with you mind, you should write the book perhaps, not read it! :)


Hi BrumieDave
I am glad you do not always agree with me because I am very well aware that my views and beliefs are not always right and I certainly would not want people to go along with them unless they challenge them very carefully and decide for themselves. All I have to offer is some experience and my own views arising from that. It (that is the investing game) always depends though on what works for the individual.

Dod

Re: Retirement income strategies - a book at bedtime

Posted: December 1st, 2019, 9:48 pm
by Dod101
Thanks Walrus. Maybe one day, but really it is not that difficult and anyway all I have done really is tried to follow the great Warren Buffet by following his two basic rules, the first one of which is of course

Rule No 1 'Never lose money',

and Rule No 2 'See Rule No 1'.

I sincerely follow that more than anything else. Sure I miss opportunities but if you drop 20% on a share you need to make 25% to get back to where you were. Surely a sobering thought.

Who is saying that I am any good as an investor anyway?

Dod

Re: Retirement income strategies - a book at bedtime

Posted: December 1st, 2019, 11:57 pm
by sloth
Gilgongo wrote:I see this book on Amazon is quite highly reviewed. Has anyone here read it? I thought I might give it a go.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/198 ... 1OLE&psc=1

Incidentally, as the blurb notes: "Most people never had to worry about how to convert their retirement savings into income for the rest of their lives. Today's low annuity rates, closure of increasing numbers of defined benefit schemes and the Pension Freedoms, introduced by the UK Government in 2015, ripped up the retirement income planning rulebook."

G

There's a useful review of it here https://monevator.com/beyond-the-4-rule-abraham-okusanya/

Re: Retirement income strategies - a book at bedtime

Posted: December 2nd, 2019, 12:24 am
by Dod101
The reviewer is probably paid by someone. The book is for someone who wants to enrich the author. Please do not waste your money on it.

Just get on with life yourself!

Dod

Re: Retirement income strategies - a book at bedtime

Posted: December 2nd, 2019, 4:40 am
by Itsallaguess
Dod101 wrote:
The reviewer is probably paid by someone. The book is for someone who wants to enrich the author. Please do not waste your money on it.

Just get on with life yourself!


I wouldn't dismiss investment books quite so easily Dod.

As with anything commercial, there are some real gems in the world of investment-books, and of course some real duds, but these discussion boards are often a really good place for people to help sort the wheat from the chaff.

Surely as people who spend lots of their time coming here to read and post about investment matters, we should be able to see that there is lots that we can learn from people with investment experience, especially where they focus in on specific areas that we might be interested in as individuals, and given the popularity of the FIRE topic on these boards, it's clear that this is an important subject to people, and one where those of us looking for options in this area for ourselves might seek out those who are able to express their own journey and experiences?

In earlier posts on this thread you've very eloquently expressed your own thoughts in this area and they've rightly been well received, so I'm surprised that you seem to so easily dismiss someone else's thoughts, just because they're in a position to have compiled them into a book.

People might be able to learn just as much from reading discussion boards and getting involved with conversations in these areas themselves, but sometimes it's good to have information at hand that can be read off-line and revisited at any time.

I've also found that often these books will cover areas and answer questions regarding sub-topics that we've sometimes not even really considered properly ourselves, but have been deemed important to cover by an author who often has much more experience in these matters, and who has (more often than not), been using the ideas that he's writing about to actually deliver the processes that we're seeking to do ourselves....

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

Re: Retirement income strategies - a book at bedtime

Posted: December 2nd, 2019, 9:37 am
by xxd09
Must agree
I learnt a lot from reading and still do
Blogging forums are great too
John Bogles books were a wake up call to me
I do not think you stop learning either because the financial world changes and if running money you have to be aware
I certainly continue to keep buying and reading financial books
xxd09

Re: Retirement income strategies - a book at bedtime

Posted: December 2nd, 2019, 9:59 am
by OLTB
Morning all.

I would want to know what Dod would do differently. Surviving off dividends only, capital increasing and using the State Pension as a holiday fund sounds good to me!

Cheers, OLTB.

Re: Retirement income strategies - a book at bedtime

Posted: December 2nd, 2019, 10:15 am
by Dod101
It was late at night and I would not have posted that had it been now! I entirely agree with IAAG's (and others') comments. I have read many investment books over the years and cannot comment on this one since I have not read it. Some books are very helpful and others not so helpful. I think those that I liked best and probably helped me most were those by Peter Lynch and 'Against the Gods' by Peter Bernstein. These are yesterday's books though and of course it may be that there are other good ones around today.

What I am dismissive of though are investment theories from academics. The books I mention are all very practical and down to earth.

I think if there is an investment secret it is not to try too hard and have a conservative and long term approach.

Again if I could get my silly post removed I would but it might spoil the flow of this thread.

Dod

Re: Retirement income strategies - a book at bedtime

Posted: December 2nd, 2019, 10:26 am
by Chrysalis
I think theories, and more importantly evidence, are helpful, but lived experience is clearly a different matter. For the latter, emotional and other factors that influence behaviour are absolutely key. Theories and evidence can help us understand this as well, but we have to live in a real world and not a world of spreadsheets and numbers. These are the relatively unimportant bits of investing.

I tend to agree with Dod that the overall approach of being cautious, sensible, flexible and living below your means are likely to be the keys to any success story. My investing strategy is completely different (index trackers only, total returns rather than income based withdrawal approach) but I suspect the other factors may not differ so very much. I think as long as you are keeping withdrawals sustainable, and can be flexible about tightening your belt in rough times, and are grown up about the choices you make, you don’t need to calculate to the last decimal place or have some complicated modelled glide path strategy.

Re: Retirement income strategies - a book at bedtime

Posted: December 2nd, 2019, 10:28 am
by Dod101
OLTB wrote:Morning all.

I would want to know what Dod would do differently. Surviving off dividends only, capital increasing and using the State Pension as a holiday fund sounds good to me!

Cheers, OLTB.


I would have started saving earlier than I did. That is something I have instilled in my almost grown up grandchildren. The trouble is that I also strongly believe that life is for living and that is what I did. There was nothing more disturbing to me than seeing a younger couple come out to where I was living in the Far East on a short term contract and then spending all their time there scrimping and saving to pay off the mortgage back home!

Most of the other matters which I would do differently are investment matters which you can only get to know about with experience and (expensive) experience is something I think most of us need to go through in order to hone our investment 'nous'.

I will not say any more because I do not want to be accused of teaching the proverbial granny to suck eggs.

Chrysalis has just said it in a nutshell. Thank you C.

Dod

Re: Retirement income strategies - a book at bedtime

Posted: December 2nd, 2019, 11:10 am
by xeny
sloth wrote:There's a useful review of it here https://monevator.com/beyond-the-4-rule-abraham-okusanya/


I'd just found that URL to suggest the review - the discussion in the comments is also full of discussion of suitable strategies.

Re: Retirement income strategies - a book at bedtime

Posted: December 4th, 2019, 1:52 pm
by Joe45
I've read the book in question, and it's not bad; it provides some food for thought in the determination of a sensible investment and draw-down strategy.

My general philosophy on investing is to read, read and then read some more. You can never be too well informed. There are lots of books available and plenty of useful blogs (Monevator has been mentioned already, Early Retirement Now is a good one).

I'm a big fan of low-cost, buy-and-hold index investing.