Book ~ "New Rules For Retirement" (2008) Warren MacKenzie and Ken Hawkins

From Amazon. com ~ The financial advice industry - including banks, mutual fund and insurance companies - has a vested interest in our hard-earned savings. Industry advisors are constantly warning us that we may not be financially prepared for retirement. And, feeling anxious about our future, we become convinced that it's a good idea to let them handle our money. After all, they seem to have all the answers. But retirement planning today isn't the same as it was in the past. We're living longer, leading more active lives, with more options about how we want to live once employment is no longer the main focus. For the 1.6 million Canadians who will be retiring in the next five years, the questions at play are more complex than "How much do I need to retire?"

Industry veterans Warren MacKenzie and Ken Hawkins have seen firsthand the mistakes that Canadians make in their financial preparations for the future. In The New Rules for Retirement, they offer simple, unbiased advice while at the same time debunking the many myths surrounding retirement.

I've been working in the investment and retirement industry since 1988 in marketing and education. I freelance with an insurance company conducting seminars to the members of their group retirement plans. So I enjoy reading books about retirement planning.

There are a variety of topics covered in this book including demographics, retirement lifestyles, calculating your cost of living in retirement, calculating your retirement income and determining which is the most appropriate asset allocation.

I especially liked that in the back of the book there are many online resources listed by chapter. Plus there is a bibliography in case you want to follow up on the books and articles mentioned throughout.

This is an excellent book, whether you are a newbie or a pro. As someone who has been in the industry for more than 20 years, I did enjoy it.

The authors are with Second Opinion Investor Services Inc., which according to their website, gives unbiased independent advice on the investing process. They're not influenced by incentives to sell or manage investment products because they don't sell or manage money - they charge by the hour the way accountants do. The fact that they are unbiased comes through in the book.