The Good Retirement Guide 2019

Having been employed generally outside the remit of large employers the information I was given on retirement was fairly minimal. As I made it to retirement age this book looked like a good idea to me. The books is in four parts. It starts with the idea of "planning more". From here it looks at "save more/earn better" and then "live better". The final theme is that of "end of life/care" which also addresses those who have care of others. Within the parts there are chapters dealing with specific topics.

The introduction to the book is an overview of retirement and the issues involved. I would suggest that this would be a good read for anyone approaching retirement of just into it. It should provide food for thought and I found it interesting.

In the first part proper about "planning more" Financial advisers and Pensions are the lead chapters. The chapters then move on to Savings and Investments then Tax. This is all good stuff really and large parts of this should be useful to many. I was aware of quite a lot of the material but looking through it provided me with some useful reminders. A few areas would probably require more information for some; it will always be hard for examples to cover everyone's circumstances.

Part two is about saving and earning. Cutting costs and more general advice such as complaining and avoiding scams which will be useful to some. The Starting your own business is a section I did skim however the content seemed well structured and informative. Overall the quantity and quality of the material in this section seemed well worthwhile to me.

The third part with the general heading of "Living Better" covers a number of areas such as the Home, Personal relationships, Health and the like. There is an interesting chapter on Volunteering however I did find this rather shallow. While some of the ideas in the Holidays chapter were interesting again I felt it was a bit superficial and I felt it missed covering some areas. While earlier sections are rather more factual I guess this part is a little more subjective. However there are ideas contained in it that will be of interest to some.

Finally comes End of Life planning and Care. The aim of this section seems twofold. Care of those reaching retirement and also the fact that those people may in turn have responsibilities for ageing parents. Indeed the first chapter is about taking care of elderly parents and relatives. Wills and "final plans" follow this. I guess I'd hope that most people will have at least been aware of this before getting this book however it seems likely that it should be of real importance to anyone who hasn't dealt with this already.

There is very useful information here. I doubt everyone will be as interested in all the chapters. I'm not that interested in continuing employment for instance. Equally the .gov website told me that I could not improve my pension for example - something I had checked on before getting this book.

I found as I read this through I increasingly bookmarked parts to return to later. I really did find some parts of this book very useful indeed. Other parts were definitely thought provoking. However there were also parts that were either not relevant or that I had already dealt with that I skimmed over. This is a book that should be useful (& appreciated) by many. On a purely personal basis it is a book I would prefer to have as a real book not in electronic form.

At first blush, this may seem like just another retirement book that tells us just to save more for our retirement if we want to have the income to do the things we want. It would be a great injustice to bypass this book with that thought.

Contrarily, the author begins by describing the three stages of retirement: Active retirement (the 10 – 15 years after you stop working); Passive retirement (your 70s and 80s) and Retirement with care (late 80s and 90s). According to Mr. Smith, these three stages have very different requirements in terms of needs and available resources.

After understanding the phases, according to this book, you must make plans and adjustments so that you have the income to be able to cover the different expenses of each phase. Many of the topics such as ways to save and trusts and estates are similar to what you have heard in the past. However, there are very informative topics such as “How to be a better complainer” and “Assessing your home. “Many retirees are determined to stay in their home until they die. This topic in the lens of the third stage, retirement care, is very beneficial reading.

I very much enjoyed reading this book. I ran it through quickly the first time and now will read it with the idea of taking notes and beginning the recommended processes. It will definitely make a difference in my quality of life in future years.


I received an ARC from Kogan Page Ltd. through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This is no way affects my opinion or rating of this book.

Although I am some way off retirement, this is a very useful guide, with the emphasis on forward planning. Some of it I am familiar with as my husband has already retired, but I am looking towards a useful, active and hopefully long retirement, while maintaining a decent standard of living. This book is full of useful advice on how to achieve this.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for and advance ARC copy of this book.

Always a help to any retiree. A book I always look out for as it is well written, informative and easy to understand.