I know there’s some great advice in the retirement thread, but I’m looking for some good, relatively simple reads about investing well, during the years close to retirement. In theory, I have my retirement more or less taken care of without this money, but you never know what the future will bring.
I am considering paying someone to manage funds for a year or two, so I can learn from that person, and I know some here would say run, don’t walk from that idea.
Before I move forward, I’d like to read a balanced book or two.
When you make a suggestion, it would be great to know why you liked a particular book.
A second to that idea here. I read that thread, and don’t have the financial know how to understand the finer points of some of the detail, and would like a sort of Dummies guide to some of those terminologies. Basic investing concepts, are relatively easy to pick up from sites such as Vanguard or Motley Fool.
I don’t think paying someone to manage your money for two years will result in free financial tutoring.
I can think of a few, but not necessarily only in investing, but about other aspects of retirement planning too:
Margaret Malaspina - Cracking your retirement nest egg and Don’t Die Broke (since the books were not recent publications, at least the version I listened to, some of the info was dated, but the topics were relevant to me)
Daniel Solin - the smartest 401(k) book you’ll ever read (but didn’t like his smartest investment book - found it far too repetitive)
Jean Chatzky - retirement- an excerpt from Money 911, or the Money 911 book itself
John Mauldin - Just one thing. 12 different authors’ views in different chapters; (also Bulls Eye Investing, same author, but I liked the former better)
Ian Ayres and Barry Nalebuff - Lifecycle investing - found some of their strategies scary and bizarre (with x2 leverage for investors in their 20s), but if you look at their spreadsheets that you can download from their site, it seems to tally with their strategy, but I’m too chicken to suggest my kids follow it; for those close to retirement it sounded quite normal.
Burton Malkiel - Random walk down Wall St (related, Elements of Investing); some topics are historical like tulip bubble
I went through all of these on audio books borrowed from our library and played during my commutes.
I think I liked Malaspina the best, but again different peoples’ priorities on what the want covered varies.
PS - I second Madison’s view; obviously I don’t know about the specifics of OP’s requirements, but I feel you need more skills to find someone good to manage your money than doing it yourself with passive instruments like really low cost Vanguard funds and ETFs. Watch out for how much the person managing your funds is getting out of it in excessive fund fees, loads, and charges.
Robert Kiyosaki has some books too, but I didn’t like them; I believe his wife Kim Kiyosaki has one targeted at women (Rich Woman), but I haven’t read it.
One educational thing I’ve done is scan the investment houses (Schwab, Fidelity, and Vanguard) and read their free “newspapers” or whatever they are called. They do give out a lot of advice and you do not need an account.
An example is found if you google SCHWAB RETIREMENT INSIGHTS and the second hit I get is a link into a page with links to lots of info . Same with FIDELITY RETIREMENT EDUCATION. They mostly talk generalities, but over the years I found them to be good and not just advertising their products.
The usual suspects must be sleeping in this morning, so I’ll chime in and recommend that you go to the Bogle heads forum (it’s a .org), and check out their wiki and investment books. It reminds me a lot of the financial aid forum here. There are a number of deeply knowledgeable and unceasingly helpful posters who help you realize you can do this yourself without paying anybody to do it for you. Or you can pay somebody to do it for you, but have the knowledge yourself to allow you to pay very little for help and know that you are getting good direction.
There are also a few nuts and flakes, but fewer than on most forums. Check it out, you’ll be glad you did. There are some recommended books listed there to read as well.
Thanks everyone. I have started to read bogle heads.
@1214mom
I assume you are looking for “investing” advice rather than “planning” guides. If so, there are as many opinions on that as there are opiners. IMO, it’s good to make sure your “plan” is sound before you venture too deeply into moving investments around.
The Bogleheads Wiki is a great resource for a start. The Bogleheads forum is a bit of a slog and hit-or-miss. Like here, it’ll take a while to figure out who is an expert poster, etc., but of course you can pose a question and see what you get. I found the Wiki helpful as a collation of general information. If you want general information to start, here are two books from the “brand.” Both endorse a DIY approach, which may not be for everyone, but acquiring knowledge should at least help you ask the right questions and know when to ask them.
Bogleheads books:
(1) retirement planning:
http://www.amazon.com/Bogleheads-Guide-Retirement-Planning/dp/0470919019/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1427662088&sr=1-1&keywords=bogleheads+guide+to+retirement+planning
Thanks @AttorneyMother. You hit the nail on the head. It’s hard to know who knows what on bogleheads.
I have my basic retirement needs covered. But I’m trying to figure out how I should invest another pot of money. It of course can be used in retirement, but I may decide to give some to kids, will likely need to support my mom at some point, etc., so I need it to be relatively liquid, meaning I can’t invest in something I must hold for 10 years, for example. And figuring out what makes a diversified group of funds is quite scary to me. But I realize paying a percent or more to someone else eats into the returns. So I want to make smart decisions.
@1214mom
It’s a great start that you have identified the purpose for this pot of money.
Even more helpful is if you can assign (1) a likelihood it will be used, (2) a time horizon to its likely use, (3) your risk profile for this money . If you absolutely cannot take any chances with this money, then preserving its spending power is what you are after. And, so on. By knowing what you need this money to do, you can narrow investment options down quite effectively.
By crunching the numbers for each likely use of this pot of money, you can arrive at a fairly good objective you can articulate should you elect to seek advice.
If you decide to put a portion of this pot of money into equities, most would advise you that diversification for that piece can be achieve through a low-cost, broad market index fund. But, you have to be comfortable with what you are doing.
Eric Tyson authors many of the financial For Dummies books. I found his Investing for Dummies & Personal Finance for Dummies helpful a while back. Determining your time horizon for that pot sounds like it’s going to be key for you. I definitely wouldn’t pay someone to manage money, though I might consider a fee-only advisor to set up a plan for it. (I’m thinking this would be a couple of hours and would result in a written plan describing a time line, set of actions and asset allocation recommendation which would presumably change over time.