Having a secure retirement is a worthwhile goal. Most everyone would like to spend their golden years worry- free; enjoying their time away from work without the added stress associated with having too few dollars to live comfortably. But as much as most would like to retire with a substantial amount of savings, far too many come up short and in this book, The Retirement Challenge: Will You Sink or Swim?, author Frank Armstrong provides some simple lessons to help educate people on retirement planning.    

Basic Contents of This Book:

This 266- page personal finance book is divided into five main sections:

1. Overview of the Retirement Problem
2. Meet Your Retirement Plans
3. Where are You in Your Career?
4. How Much Will You Need?
5. Investing to Meet Your Goals
Glossary
Index


The first part of this book talks about the problems with retirement plans and what needs to be done to improve the chances for a secure retirement. Topics like taking responsibility for your future, the changing trends in retirement planning, etc. are discussed in this opening section. Part 2 then goes on to talk about different types of retirement plan options, such as profit sharing, defined benefit plans, pension plans, and more.

In part 3, the book talks about individuals and their working career, with a focus on what to do when you change jobs and have retirement funds to play with and how to handle the years as you approach retirement to make sure you have the money you need to last all the way to your final days. Part 4 then talks numbers. This section is concerned with forecasting the amount of funds you will need and making sure that, once retired, you don't withdraw money too quickly.

In part 5, the book makes an effort to convince the reader how to control the urge to speculate with retirement money; how to elminate debt; what securities to purchase; and how to select a financial advisor. The book then ends with a glossary of terms and an index.

Final Thoughts:

Saving for retirement is critical, and many individuals have set important goals to save/invest a minimum amount of money each month to improve their chances for living comfortable in retirement. These prudent individuals know that they cannot count on Social Security or other people to take care of them when they reach retirement age. They need to make sure they can hold their own, and they have made many strides toward reaching their goal of a safe and secure retirement.

But for the majority, saving for retirement is not going as planned. These individuals might be trapped in a poorly structured 401K plan at their place of employment with little help for improvement. They might feel intimiated by all of the investment options available. For others, the failure to plan may be a result of simple economics: There simply may not be enough money left in the budget to make saving for retirement financially feasible.

For individuals in the latter group, author Frank Armstrong presents The Retirement Challenge: Will You Sink or Swim? Armstrong is an investment advisor and he is very concerned that such large portions of the American population is not saving adequately for retirement or, if they are saving, are placing their money in the wrong investment vehicles. Armstrong believes that retirement savings should take top priority over other investment decisions and he wants every reader of this book to come away from the reading with a better understanding of the different retirement investment options. He wants all Americans and others to understand the importance of retirement savings and he wants to make sure that individuals do not commit some of the common mistakes that can destroy an otherwise healthy financial future.

How does The Retirement Challenge get its key points across? The way this book is written, it is divided into the main sections above and withn each of these sections are lessons. There are a total of 48 lessons in this book and each one of them touches on an important aspect of retirement savings. There are several reasons to like this format. First, it helps to break up the book into short sections for easy reading. Second, it breaks up the book in a way that makes it useful not just for present reading, but also as a reference tool. If there is a specific area of retirement savings in which an individual could use a little guidance, he/she can turn directly to that section and absorb the knowledge within.

The Retirement Challenge offers mostly sound advice and few would dispute the majority of the tips offered by Armstrong. He advises not placing too much retirement money in risky investments; saving at least ten percent of your income; Taking advantage of the special tax statuses of different retirement vehicles and making the best selection based on this knowledge; etc. Most of this advice is good, and much of it has been stated by other financial advisors. Still, due to its importance, it certainly can't hurt to hear it again and Armstrong is certain to spell out the basics as well as the more complex subjects throughout the pages of The Retirement Challenge.
 
I agree with the majority of what The Retirement Challenge: Will You Sink or Swim? recommends and I agree that this type of advice and focus on retirement savings is critically important. But I don't necessarily agree with every opinion offered by Armstrong. He seems to err on the side of conservative investing when it comes to saving for retirement and I think some of his advice is more extreme than necessary. For example, he recommends not investing any money at all in your company stock, within your retirement plan. He bases his advice on examples of companies whose employees lost a large portion of their retirement assets when the company stock headed south. But over a long period of time, the majority of companies will enjoy stock price appreciation so I don't agree that company stock should be avoided completely. Still, I do agree that it should be limited and monitored closely- particularly as retirement time draws near. I think a limit of no more than ten percent of one's retirement money in their company stock is a good rule to follow. Gradually, as retirement gets closer to reality, I would then recommend selling off the company stock in favor of a less risky investment.

The Retirement Challenge makes many references to its web site, sink-swim.com. Throughout the book are small text boxes with an image of a laptop comuter, the web address, the caption "Do it Yourself", and a tip or calculation that can be performed by using the sink-swim.com web site. I have checked out the web site and I agree that it is very useful. The financial calculators, budget pages, and other tools are very useful and they make a good supplement to the text.

Overall, The Retirement Challenge: Will You Sink or Swim? is a very handy guide for those who are worried about their retirement security and would like some simple tips and changes that they can implement right now to improve their chances for retirement savings success. Armstrong's book is a little more conservative than some will prefer, but his heart and his advice are in the right place and he writes in a manner than is easy to understand. Too few individuals have prepared for retirement and The Retirement Challenge wants to get you, the concerned investor, back on track toward a secure retirement and a bright future during your golden years.  

Recommended: Yes