Retirement planning is tough for everyone

If you find it hard to plan for retirement, here is a little secret: It is hard for everyone - even the world's foremost experts on the topic.

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Take Ms Christine Benz, for example. As the long-time director of personal finance and retirement planning for investment research firm Morningstar, Ms Benz knows pretty much everything there is to know on the subject.

But when her own father started experiencing cognitive decline, she assumed financial responsibilities for her parents and was swamped with hundreds of retirement-related challenges one cannot fully understand until experienced.

"It was a best-case scenario for them: Someone aligned with their interests, helping them sort things out," Ms Benz says. "But not everyone has that. A lot of investors out there are really worried about embarking on this process without any help at all."

These lessons shaped a new book, How To Retire: 20 Lessons For A Happy, Successful, And Wealthy Retirement.

The book draws on in-depth interviews with 20 personal finance experts, including chapters with best-selling authors like Mr Ramit Sethi (Give Yourself Permission To Spend On What Matters To You) and Ms Jean Chatzky (What Women Need To Do Differently).

Ms Benz also distils her career in the personal-finance field into these five main pointers:

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