Buy new:
$523.85$523.85
FREE delivery July 1 - 7
Ships from: DeckleEdge LLC Sold by: DeckleEdge LLC
Save with Used - Good
$47.23$47.23
FREE delivery June 26 - July 2
Ships from: Zoom Books Company Sold by: Zoom Books Company

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Unveiling The Retirement Myth Paperback – October 1, 2009
Purchase options and add-ons
- Print length525 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherOtar & Associates
- Publication dateOctober 1, 2009
- ISBN-100968963420
- ISBN-13978-0968963425
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.
Customers who viewed this item also viewed
Editorial Reviews
Review
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Otar & Associates
- Publication date : October 1, 2009
- Edition : First Edition
- Language : English
- Print length : 525 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0968963420
- ISBN-13 : 978-0968963425
- Item Weight : 2.77 pounds
- Best Sellers Rank: #3,118,763 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #9,955 in Personal Finance (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Jim C. Otar is a retired financial advisor and a retired engineer. He is the author of several books and over 100 articles. His engineering background helped him to discover and quantify the importance of luck on retirement income planning (a.k.a "sequence of returns"). He gave close to 700 presentations and workshops to financial professionals over the years on this topic. He won the prestigious CFP-Board Award in 2001 and 2002 for his articles. He is the founder of www.retirementoptimizer.com.
Customer reviews
- 5 star4 star3 star2 star1 star5 star81%19%0%0%0%81%
- 5 star4 star3 star2 star1 star4 star81%19%0%0%0%19%
- 5 star4 star3 star2 star1 star3 star81%19%0%0%0%0%
- 5 star4 star3 star2 star1 star2 star81%19%0%0%0%0%
- 5 star4 star3 star2 star1 star1 star81%19%0%0%0%0%
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find this retirement planning book thought-provoking, with one review noting its exhaustive analysis of different income strategies. They consider it worth every penny.
AI Generated from the text of customer reviews
Select to learn more
Customers find the book thought-provoking and valuable for retirement planning, with one customer noting it provides an exhaustive analysis of different income strategies, while another mentions it is clear enough for a financially literate layman to understand.
"...This valuable contribution to the financial planning literature addresses the rarely discussed question of how to consume your retirement funds once..." Read more
"This is the best retirement book I've ever read - - and I've read lots of them. What makes this book so good?..." Read more
"This book is an extraordinarily thorough examination of just about every approach to retirement planning and management that I have ever heard of...." Read more
"...the time value of fluctuations, and the exhaustive analysis of many different retirement income strategies in one volume...." Read more
Customers find the book worth every penny, with one mentioning there are no sales gimmicks.
"...In that light, the book is worth every penny." Read more
"...No sales gimmicks, no magic formulas, just the FACTS!..." Read more
"...Very well done and worth every minute I spent in reading it!" Read more
"This book is not cheap, but it is worth the cost. It helped me with plans for paying for my retirement...." Read more
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews. Please reload the page.
- Reviewed in the United States on March 29, 2010Format: PaperbackVerified PurchaseThis guide describes itself as "Advanced Retirement Planning." It's written for financial advisors, but is clear enough for a financially literate layman to understand.
This valuable contribution to the financial planning literature addresses the rarely discussed question of how to consume your retirement funds once they have been accumulated.
His objective is to tell financial planning professionals (and by inference, retirees) how to invest to avoid running out of money given a range of likely future scenarios. He uses the past 100 years market history as the source of his possible scenarios. He makes what he calls "aftcasts": forecasts using past history as the scenarios. It's a clever and plausible device that lets one plan how to invest and distribute one's retirement funds for scenarios ranging from retiring at the start of the Great Depression to retiring at the start of the Dot-Com boom.
He takes about 150 pages to debunk the "myth" of retirement planning. The "myth" is that planning to withdraw retirement funds is just like planning to accumulate retirement funds. It's not.
Chapters 39-44 get to the meat of how to plan your distributions. It's a slog to get to these chapters, but the understanding generated by reading chapters 1-38 helps make the recommendations in chapters 39-44 understandable.
This is an excellent reference tool for anyone desiring to manage their own financial planning in retirement.
- Reviewed in the United States on July 14, 2010Format: PaperbackVerified PurchaseThis is the best retirement book I've ever read - - and I've read lots of them. What makes this book so good? In short, because it's backed up by solid, credible data (Otar used to be an engineer, and his love for quantitative results is impressive and informatative. This is not a "touchy-feely" book on retirement . . . this is a book grounded in detailed, but highly understandable, financial data. If you're wondering exactly how much money you need to retire comfortably over several decades, this is the book for you. It's not a cheap book, but after reading it, I felt that I had just attended several in-depth sessions with an experienced financial advisor. In that light, the book is worth every penny.
- Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2011Format: PaperbackVerified PurchaseMr Otar's book is quite technical and will not appeal to " Financial Professionals" who are hooked on providing Retirement Planning using the tools that are popular today.
He discusses the essential mathmatical formulas that apply to the planning process and explains how to use the results of those formulas to develop a realistic retirement plan for a client.
This book is for professionals who really want to know how a good plan is prepared and are willing to give up on the idea that you can plug assumptions into the bulk of the software programs that are available today and get any reasonably accurate prediction of the plans success in providing the client with an inflation adjusted income that he or she cannot outlive.
It is highly unlikely that most professionals are going to manually prepare a plan using the formulas presented in the book; however, there is a very inexpensive piece of software that Mr. Otar sells which gives much more realistic results than any other software that I have ever seen.
- Reviewed in the United States on May 29, 2012Format: PaperbackVerified PurchaseWhile at first glance I must admit to being a little intimated by this book with all its math formula's! But in all honestly, it's really an easy read, the math equations aside. The author wrote the book in such a way you can skip right over all the math parts and read the conclusion at the end of each chapter to comprehend the subject.
I have spent the last few years reading all about asset allocation, and how to build a diversified portfolio holding the entire market. This is the first book I have read on how to draw down on your nest egg, and all the *real* options available to you. No sales gimmicks, no magic formulas, just the FACTS!
I will be referencing this for years to come, not just for my own retirement, but for helping friends and others understand their game plan for `UNVEILING THE RETIREMNT MYTH'
- Reviewed in the United States on September 28, 2011Format: PaperbackVerified PurchaseThis book is an extraordinarily thorough examination of just about every approach to retirement planning and management that I have ever heard of. Jim Otar explains and debunks every one of these conventional wisdom approaches. He concludes with a very clear and straight forward explanation of how to proceed with fixing the problem. It's a long read, but he begins with an explanation of how those who are disinclined to read a thorough mathematical analysis can adopt a short-cut way to get what they need without having to read every word. Very well done and worth every minute I spent in reading it!
- Reviewed in the United States on September 18, 2012Format: PaperbackVerified PurchaseThis is the most comprehensive and thought-provoking book on retirement planning that I've read so far. As an engineer, I really appreciate how Otar refuses to accept the conventional half-truths promoted by the financial services industry and instead examines all the numbers again, from the ground up. I especially appreciate his elevation of the time value of fluctuations, and the exhaustive analysis of many different retirement income strategies in one volume. This may not be as polished a presentation as some of the more popular books, but it's probably more essential. Even with backcasting based on market history being challenged in some circles, Otar's book is simply required reading for anybody who wants to build expertise in retirement planning.
- Reviewed in the United States on April 19, 2010Format: PaperbackVerified PurchaseThis book is not cheap, but it is worth the cost. It helped me with plans for paying for my retirement.
Before buying it, I started to read a copy from my local library. I realized I would want this book for a lot longer than I could have it through my library. I am not sorry I bought it.
- Reviewed in the United States on May 17, 2017Format: PaperbackVerified PurchaseVery Useful and I haven't finished it yet