IRAs, 401(k)s & Other Retirement Plans: Taking Your Money Out,   ISBN:9781413310313

Customer Rating: 

This is not the type of book you (or at least I) read cover to cover. As I am many years away from retirement, I wanted to know some details about certain types of retirement fund. Specifically, I got this book because I wanted to know more about Roth IRAs.

Not only is there an entire chapter dedicated to Roth IRAs, but there is also mention several times throughout the earlier chapters on how Roth IRAs relate to specific tax rules, etc. Just what I wanted!

I am very pleased with the information provided, and I do trust the information in the book. If I have future confusion on anything related to IRAs/401(k)s, I will pull out this reference! Again, not the type of book you read through, but if you want to know specifics about different retirement plans you should be pleased with this.

Customer Rating: 

One of the best things I liked about this book was the small section before the chapter starts that tells you if you should even start to read the chapter and a sentence or 2 on what it is about.

This book is very thorough and it will definitely take a while to read through even if you have quick questions. Most of the book concerns how to plan which IRA is the best for you and the benefits or lack of with each. There are a lot of tricky rules, about withdrawals, early withdrawals, taxes and/or penalties on different IRAs that are worth considering and understanding before investing.

This was very sobering look into the future and well worth the time and effort to plod through. There is a fair amount of math involved as it helps you calculate how much you will need to invest to live the style you would like. (The appendix at the end is filled with tax forms- yuck!) And frankly if you are not mathematically minded you may just want to give up even though they do give several examples.

In summary, I think this book does give you everything you need to know. For myself it helped me get an idea of what I wanted to do without feeling like a complete dummy. But a lot of the book involves more complicated stuff (taxes etc.) which are not so straightforward although the book tries to make it easier. If you are analytical or good mathematically I believe this will be great, probably a breeze but if you are challenged (like me) you might want to read it for the general info and then see a specialist to help you plan further.

Customer Rating: 

If you are getting close to retirement, or you are not close, but are considering starting a plan or withdrawing or rolling over your hard earned funds, this book is for you.

In plain and crisp language, this book describes (1) various types of retirement plans, (2) tax rules governing retirement savings, and (3) the mechanics and impacts of various retirement payment methods. In other words, the book describes what to do before and after retirement so that you maximize your funds and minimize taxes. The authors make their work understandable, while raising the discussion at least one step above what you might find in a "Retirement for Dummies" volume.

I have friends on all points of the retirement continuum. Some are just starting, others are mid-career, and a lucky few are counting the days until their most onerous task each day will be fetching the mail. This book would be a valuable addition to everyone's bookshelf.

Rating: Five stars

Customer Rating: 

Ah, the good old days of lifetime employment and full pensions....gone. So, how do you make sense of the convoluted tax structure surrounding these retirement "investment" vehicles when putting money in and getting it out? There are, of course, the tax forms and booklets from the IRS. If the government was good at writing those in an understandable fashion, TurboTax would never have been as successful as it is! This Nolo guide addresses getting it out, as stated in the third sentence of the text, "This book is about how to take your money out of your retirement plans." It tackles the rules for withdrawals, distributions, tax implications, and so forth for various types of retirement plans. The goal is to understand it enough to plan better to minimize associated taxes or penalties. Though I still have a fair amount of time before I can do so in a retirement sense, I found the book makes the topic approachable, like most Nolo titles, and provides enough information to better communicate with your adviser or planner. They augment the text with tips, cautionary items, and plenty of examples. This is a good additional to your financial reference library to supplement investing and managing your money.

Customer Rating: 

I know I'm not alone in that I'm cautious about what to do with investments in an economy where situations are changing for companies, industries, and even entire countries. If you work with investments, you need a handy reference to quickly figure out what changing these investments, or liquidating them, entails.

This book is a real comfort to have. You quickly can find the information you need. It's not really a book one has to read cover to cover, though it's written well enough that I actually did just that, almost on accident. This really is perfect for someone like me who needs extra information about Roth IRAs. I really like that it's to-the-point.

The book goes into depth. If you are not a professional in a financial field, this might sound like overkill, but it's easy for anybody interested to read without being basic. This is probably as good as this kind of book ever gets!