Living Off Your Money: The Modern Mechanics of Investing During Retirement with Stock and Bonds

I can summarize the book for you. Figure out how much more time you have, divide that figure into your remaining money. Withdraw sums accordingly. Oh, and buy index funds over large, mid and small cap sectors, sprinkle with bonds if you are really old or risk adverse. The rest is fluff.

This book was recommended to me by someone with a few years of retirement already under his belt and I had no idea how appropriate this book was for me as I just began my retirement. As an engineer, I thought his methodology was quite sound and provided a solid basis for embarking on an unconventional approach to both managing the ratio between stocks and bonds as well as how to calculate variable withdrawals on an annual basis. The author backs up his approach using both domestic and some first world foreign market history, which helps to build credibility as our economy marches into unchartered territory. The area where I found his argument the weakest was the advice on how to balance domestic with foreign equities -- this seemed based more on belief that American exceptionalism is coming to an end rather than being proscribed by historical market performance. My opinion here may be particularly harsh since adhering to his plan would create the biggest deviation from more conventional investment advice offered by run-of-the-mill financial advisors. Fortunately his other plan elements still hold together irrespective of how the stock portfolio is allocated against the various investment options.

First off, I have not been this excited to leave a review for a very long time! For years I've been an avid ready of investment and retirement books. However, over time I began feeling like much of the information I was consuming was redundant, and the level of depth/specificity was lacking. So I began using financial advisor forums for recommendations... I saw this book mentioned a couple times and was lucky to find it here on Amazon.Long story short - I am blown away. Far and away the most complete and detailed treatment of the topic of retirement income strategies and recommendations I have ever read. To say this book is well researched is an understatement... it's more like a labor of love for this author and WE are the beneficiaries! The learnings and practical tactics in this book are hard to put a price on... easily tens to hundreds of thousands for the type of folks who are students of investing - no exaggeration. Not a bad investment of time and $40ish bucks!So who is this book for? This book looks and reads more like a university-level textbook than a mainstream financial book. For this reason, I think it's best fit for someone with a solid foundational knowledge of finance and investing (you don't need to be an expert, but honestly this would have a casual, hands-off investor a bit overwhelmed in a hurry).Bottom line, if you're more hands-off and desire to follow the blanket advice of taking 4% inflation-adjusted annual withdrawals, then this book is NOT for you. If you are an active manager of your portfolio and looking for a highly-researched strategy to realizing an annual income well in excess of the 4%, then put this book in your cart right now. Seriously, it's a no brainer!PS - I know this probably sounds like a planted review for this book. I assure you it is not. I have no tie to this author (had never even heard of him before reading this)... I just feel strongly that it's a game changer for folks like me looking for a more substance than the mainstream financial press is providing. Hope you enjoy!

Read it cover to cover. Not a professional in this field and still found it very worthwhile to read. Tried several advisors and found them more interested in their bottom line than ours. This book will enable me to manage my own money and avoid getting cheated again. It is a technical book, not for the faint of heart, but much of the more technical stuff can be skimmed allowing one to get enough to understand the big picture. I highly recommend it.

I've read dozens of investing and retirement books over the years and most have been based on hope, luck and logic. This book attempts to back every statement with several data-driven approaches. For me it's been an education in the various theories and methods of withdrawing money in retirement; most books simply tout their own system.This is also the first book I've found that focuses solely on retirement investing. The other books I've found spend pages telling you how to accrue money from your twenties on up--but they get pretty vague about what to do after retirement. And this is totally a stocks-and-bonds book, not a survey of the merits on annuities or real estate. This narrow focus keeps it simpler than it might appear. I will be recommending this to all my aging friends, and I recommend it to you!

I’ve read many books on the subject of retirement strategies. This one is by far the most objective, thorough and convincing. The author presents a solid foundation of reason, or data, supporting each of the strategies and concepts presented. He headlines the fact that retirement investing is very different than pre-retirement investing, and explains why. This concept is crucial, yet so foreign to many retirees. He separates known risk from speculative risk, and reveals the power in understanding this concept, and how this is leveraged for a successful retirement strategy. While this reads like a text book, it’s not dull or dry. It kept me turning the pages to learn more. Each page contains new morsels of critical knowledge, along with ample examples as needed. Overall, this book is a great investment and a must for my reference library.

This book, and more importantly the work underneath it, is excellent. It is a reflection on the Financial industry that someone outside of the field had to do the research and write it. Simply put, if you are nearing retirement and will be living off of IRA/401k money this work (it is far more than a simple book) may be the best investment that you can make.This is not a casual read, but the author does an outstanding job of making the subject matter accessible.

I was starting to consider DIY pension drawdown. Early 50s. So exactly the target audience for this book.This book is the best by far, that I have found that examines the subject practically and compares different and relevant approaches. No pseudo religion. Nothing for sale except the book. McClung brings data. Lots of data. More importantly he brings interpretation and step by step analysis. He shows why (and when) you should take one approach over another based on what is more important to you - based on how things performed across all the historical record (back testing, of multiple markets (to avoid tuning and data mining bias). He simulates failure markets (beyond the historical record) and tests again. The book has an engineering / cook book approach - it's about "how to do it" after a long explanation as to "why" do X. If you don't like this detailed narrative style of communication (lots of data tables) then you will hate the book. It is very far from an easy read. If you lack attention span this will not work for you. You will also need to learn the jargon of pensions and drawdown or it will be baffling. It's not the first book or blog you should read about drawdown. I took more than one read through to grasp most of what he is saying and to reach the point where I could see confidently what I would choose among the options presented.So it will either be a big step on education for DIY pension drawdown or it will cure you of the notion entirely that you want to do it yourself.Minor gaps/negatives from a UK perspectiveThere are a couple of US focused chapters on guranteed income and US bonds ladders (TIPS) which are of lesser interest to a UK pensioner. The principles about mixing drawdown and guaranteed income are considered so this is still usefulIt doesn't cover UK tax specifics - pensions, IHT, ISAs, CGT, LTA and all the other tax code alphabet soup. Will need to self educate on that elsewhere - internet forums, government communications etc. It matters but you can add it on top.

The majority of today's DC scheme pension holders are walking into an uncertain pension future. I would say I am more informed than most people I know and work with, if not the most informed! But as I am now learning, I knew very little about how DC pensions perform in retirement, I have been on a huge learning journey over the last 6 Months and this book has been hugely helpful in making me aware of the risks but also the possibilities of my investment. scary! But exciting as well. A must read for all people retiring on a DC Pension, especially Drawdow.

This is an excellent – although at times complex – book about retirement income generation. For me it covered a number of threads/ideas/concepts I have been thinking about but had not yet managed to pull together into a complete strategy or approach to retirement income. After reading it I immediately ordered a copy via Amazon for my brother who lives in the USA.Broadly:1) It tests several portfolio management approaches (called harvesting). It recommends the best ways to get an income from your portfolio;2) How to deal with varying portfolio returns given that there are sequence of return risks using stock and shares;3)How to decide upon an initial withdrawal rate. This was the bit in the book I found the hardest to follow;4) What will make up a good retirement income portfolio. The USA leaning of this book means this chapter may not always suggest investments available in other countries, but the principles are useful to read about;5) Thinking about the cost and approach to get a minimum guaranteed income to cover essential living expenses. This was probably the least important chapter because of the USA focus of the book.Tests and comparisons, that he calls surveys, are conducted using mainly one set of USA based historical returns but are cross tested with a different set of USA figures plus UK and Japanese historical data.

The best-evidenced drawdown strategy I have read. It also makes more than a nod to the non-USA market. Given the dearth of such texts aimed at the UK this has been a welcome addition to my knowledge base.

Interesting book, very detailed and analytical. A good lesson in broad diversification of your hard earned money but still need to bear in mind systemic risks which as the author points out, is not factored in. In other words, starting with the recommended strategy in 2010 would lead to a different outcome compared to starting in 2018.