In this book, the authors use their experience from both the personal finance and corporate finance worlds to propose a retirement plan that might serve you better than traditional retirement strategies. The book has 17 chapters, and about 176 pages.

Throughout this book, the authors use the fictional characters Michael and Jill Cunningham as examples to illustrate their points. The idea behind the title of the book is revealed in the first chapter, as Michael and Jill are frustrated by the four options that their financial advisor gives them in order to have more money in their retirement years. The four options are : Work more years before retiring, spend less in retirement, take more risk, or save more money now. Michael and Jill are looking for a fifth option.

Over the next several chapters, the authors explain the fifth option through the characters of Michael's dad and sister. The fifth option involves a combination of strategies, including Beat the Bear, the Bucket Strategy, and creating your own “pension” using Whole Life insurance and SPIAs. The characters use several examples to explain longevity risk and volatility risk, and why these factors mean that retirement doesn't go as planned for many people. At the end of each chapter, Michael summarizes the key points by writing them down in his “notebook”, which serves to highlight key ideas for the reader.

This was an informative and easy to read book, that really does a good job of explaining these concepts in a very accessible manner. If you are apprehensive about your retirement planning, and don't have a background in finance, then this book is a great entry point to learning about how to avoid some financial dangers.

In this journey to retirement readiness, following along Michael and Jill's path to financial security, you will attain:

• A game plan grounded in the latest retirement research where you will learn to become better prepared against the biggest dangers for your financial future.

• Multiple pathways to safeguard safe, predictable, and plentiful income

• Greater understanding of how you can optimize your investments with actuarial science

• And so much more