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😊 Retire Happily with Christine Benz: Lessons for a Happy and Fulfilling Retirement 🎯
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💥 David chats with Christine Benz, Director of Personal Finance at Morningstar and author of *How to Retire: Lessons from 20 Retirement Thought Leaders*. 📘
🌟 Christine shares her journey and key insights on how to retire happily, emphasizing a holistic approach to retirement planning. 🌅
💡 She discusses the importance of aligning spending with happiness, nurturing relationships, and staying adaptable in retirement. 🧘♂️
🔑 Key Topics Discussed:
⇨ Importance of Relationships in Retirement
⇨ Knowing Your Retirement Income Style
⇨ Aligning Spending with Happy Retirement Goals
🔗 Christine’s Links:
🔗 David's Links:
🍏 Forget About Money on Apple Podcast
🎧 Forget About Money on Spotify
📝 Episode Highlights:
🎥 Christine's holistic approach to retirement planning
🚨 Aligning spending with personal happiness and values
💡 The significance of nurturing relationships in retirement
🎧 Listen & Subscribe: Don’t forget to subscribe to "Forget About Money" for more insightful episodes featuring experts who guide you on achieving a happy and fulfilling retirement. Hit the bell icon 🔔 to get notified of new episodes!
#️⃣ Hashtags: #RetireHappily #ChristineBenz #RetirementPlanning #HappyRetirement #FinancialIndependence #PersonalFinance #RetirementIncome #HolisticRetirement #PhasedRetirement #PurposeDrivenLife #FinancialWellness
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Transcript
Introduction to Retirement Happiness: Insights from Christine Benz
00:00:00
Speaker
What does it take to truly retire happy? Author Christine Benz shares her lessons learned from 20 retirement thought leaders. Here we go.
00:00:12
Speaker
Welcome to the Forget About Money podcast, where we encourage you to take action today so that you can focus on what matters most to you. Today, Christine Bens shares with us how to retire happily. Christine is the director of personal finance and retirement planning for Morningstar and an acclaimed author known for her practical financial advice. In her upcoming book, How to Retire, Lessons from 20 Retirement Thought Leaders, she explores what contributes to a healthy, happy, and wealthy retirement.
Transition to Holistic Retirement Planning
00:00:42
Speaker
Welcome, Christine. David, it's great to be with you. Thank you so much for having me on. Christine, you've written a number of financial-based books. What caused you to expand the discussion to no longer focus on just finance, but the more holistic aspect of a person in retirement?
00:00:59
Speaker
Yeah, it's interesting. I started as part of Morningstar's fund research team and was um eventually head of our US team of analysts covering mutual funds. And now the team, of course, covers exchange traded funds. But along the way, I began to think, well, gosh, there's a lot of stuff that we, even though we're doing great work on you know on the fund reports, I felt like there's a lot of decisions that ah that people make that we're not really addressing with this work. So I went through the CFP program at that time and um then began to focus more broadly on financial planning matters. And as I did that work,
00:01:44
Speaker
I began to get just so much feedback from people who were about to retire in retirement i noticed how engaged they were because they're sort of it you know point of purchase in their lives where they really gotta make some decisions. um When you're in the accumulation years it's kind of easy to drift along you may be defaulted into some sort of retirement savings option but once you are ready to retire or in retirement you gotta make some decisions.
00:02:17
Speaker
So I began to focus my work more heavily on financial planning and other decisions for people at that life stage and that was really the genesis for the book.
The Role of Relationships in Aging Happiness
00:02:28
Speaker
um Harvesting, harnessing some of the great contacts that I've made along the way and and um you know bringing insights into the book ah about retirement, about retirement de-cumulation, but also lifestyle considerations in retirement. Your new book features lessons from 20 retirement thought leaders, a very impressive list. oh Which lesson do you believe is the most crucial for right retirees to retire happily?
00:02:59
Speaker
Probably the lesson with, and it's hard to pick because I love all the chapters, but the chapter that I ah he was most excited about, I think, was the conversation with Laura Carstensen. She's a Stanford researcher. She heads up the Stanford Center on Longevity. and Her lesson is about relationships and the importance of relationships throughout our life cycles. ah They are integral to our sense of happiness, our sense of well-being. And one really fascinating takeaway from her research is just that our social networks do tend to winnow down a little bit as we age.
00:03:43
Speaker
But that's okay that we're a lot of times getting more selective about the people we spend time with um and of course we might have sad things that contribute to the winnowing of that social network we might have people move away or get sick and die but a lot of it is that we're self selecting into. The relationships that we value the most you know i know we've all probably had experiences where you meet up with some friends or a friend and you come away from that relationship. Come away from that engagement kind of walking on air just you feel like you've been so listen to and you've given up yourself.
00:04:21
Speaker
That's what she's talking about that you know when she talks about these social networks getting smaller worse were selecting into relationships like that. So it's a really positive uplifting message and she has other lessons on happiness as well but i think that you know you can kinda bring them together so nurturing she talks about the value of nurturing your health. as well as getting outside if you possibly can and um making sure that you're staying up to date on your social contacts and you can bring those things together so i think i said so you could. Plan to take a walk outside with a friend and you're taking a lot of boxes that contribute to happiness um if you do you know sort of thinking about things like that.
00:05:07
Speaker
And relationships, as you just mentioned, is definitely vital for anyone to be happy at any point in their life, especially in retirement.
Building and Maintaining Social Connections in Retirement
00:05:16
Speaker
You're right, whenever we may have already left a job or moved our kids maybe have already moved away and we're we're lacking those connections. so Yeah, I appreciate you mentioning that because that's important not just later in your life, but throughout your entire life. And if we could focus on that, at least as a one of the many things we should be focusing on as we go from even early adulthood through adulthood and into retirement age, I think maybe it won't be such a shock whenever we, okay, we have enough money for stop working, our kids are gone. And then instead of being,
00:05:54
Speaker
wondering what to do now, we will have already been aware of it and developed some of those habits that will help us live a happier life in retirement. Right. And a few different people in the book do mention that sometimes men struggle with this, that men might have more of their identities ah aligned with their work and and more of their social networks than is the case with women, that women um tend to have maybe more ah
00:06:24
Speaker
friendships in their community, ah friends, ah ah kids, parents, things like that, men may have ah fewer relationships like that. So it's really important for men to kind of think about, well, how will I replace those work friendships when I'm retired? um Or any, you know, not, it's not necessarily men, but anyone who does have Their primary relationships or a lot of their relationships and social interaction coming through but through work should be proactive about.
00:06:57
Speaker
ah Where will I meet people? Where will I form ah future social engagements? And it does involve kind of putting yourself out there, which gets harder as we age, asking someone to do something. um It's not necessarily comfortable, but ah it it's it's valuable to kind of think about, okay, what are my activities and and where will I be able to find those relationships if I'm leaving some important relationships that I had through my
Personalized Retirement Planning with Wade Fow
00:07:27
Speaker
work? yeah So relationships is extremely important and you address that in your book. It does also include some financial aspects. Wade Fow, who's a well-known professor of retirement income, he discusses knowing your retirement income style. How can identifying this style help retirees retire happy and secure?
00:07:46
Speaker
I have been so influenced by Wade's work um and specifically his retirement planning guide book, where he talks about figuring out your retirement income style. And the point there is that it's not one size fits all, that some people may be perfectly comfortable using a total return approach, maintaining a stock bond portfolio that maybe includes a little bit of cash, and then just systematically withdrawing from that portfolio. other people might be more comfortable kind of locking it down in advance of retirement. And so you might want to purchase ah some sort of a ah an annuity, for example. I tend to like the very basic annuity types that don't have high commissions and don't have a lot of bells and whistles, but just give you a guaranteed stream of income throughout your life.
00:08:41
Speaker
So i would urge people to run through wades questionnaire on identifying your retirement income style for people who are familiar with the morning star style box that looks at um various components of the stock and bond market and kind of puts them on a nine box grid wades retirement income style questionnaire is kind of similar where they actually have a four box grid ah that helps you determine where you land. And that can help you come up with what the right ah complexion is for your retirement income stream. And it's really personal. And I think it in part, it depends on how you earned your income while you were working. So for example, if if someone's been a teacher throughout their life and they've had, um you know, fairly stable income and maybe, you know, inflation adjustments each year,
00:09:38
Speaker
ah to keep help keep them whole with their cost of living. Someone like that might naturally gravitate to ah ah ah an income source in retirement that simulates what they had while they're working. On the other hand, ah you know a commission salesperson, for example, would be much more comfortable with a lumpier stream of income, or or maybe not. Maybe they'd say, I've had it with that lumpy stream of income that I had with my commissions. Now, I really want to lock it down and have sort of a pay paycheck equivalent in retirement so the bottom line is to get to know yourself to get to know your disposition if you're married if you have a partner go through this with
Spending in Alignment with Personal Values
00:10:21
Speaker
your partner to make sure that you're at least semi sync up on this stuff because you might have different dispositions and different retirement income styles. so
00:10:30
Speaker
You've got a lot of big names in this book. I'll ask you offline how you got those names. I know you're well known as well. And yeah and this is, you know, you've been in this industry for a while, so you've you've got some great contacts. Another very well-known name is Ramit Sethi. And ah he he's got the Netflix show. he's He's got a pretty thriving YouTube channel. His most recent video I just saw is like things I hate about the fire movement. I'm not sure if you've seen that or not. and I'm not sure about it, but ah but he's definitely well known and he's bringing some good messages out there. He speaks in your book and he highlights ah spending to optimize happiness. What are some practical ways retiree can align their spending with their goal to retire happy?
00:11:16
Speaker
Yeah, I love Ramit's work on spending. I feel like it's such an under discussed aspect of financial wellness. And his main point is that your spending shouldn't look like everyone else's. And I think naturally we all, you know, kind of think about the neighborhood that we live in and what people around us are doing and use that to help guide our spending. um But his point is really that you should take a step back if having a luxury car isn't a priority for you don't have a luxury car spend elsewhere maybe a priority for you is really seeing the world.
00:11:56
Speaker
So his point is you're doing it right if you're spending looks different from other people peoples and that you get funny looks sometimes um you know if people say gosh and i I personally am not a car person my husband likes cars but for years I had my 2012 Honda Accord I actually replaced it recently and got a car with a backup camera, which I wanted, but for the most part, it's not something I care about. And i you know I did think that maybe my neighbors and friends thought, well, gosh, how could how good could she be at her job of talking about investment stuff if she's driving a 2012 Honda Accord?
00:12:35
Speaker
um So you have to be prepared to feel out of sync with other people around you but i think that's part of the ah importance of doing this to make sure that you're spending is actually aligned with your personal. Priorities remit also believes envisioning you know kind of looking down the line and thinking about. Well what do i want to do if i have some some time in retirement what are the things that i want to do what's sort of my idea of ah really magical thing to do with my time and of course you'd want to think about whatever budget you have. But um just really start dreaming about it think about those plans who you want to see.
00:13:21
Speaker
doing those plans with you um and spending some time kind of creating maybe a two-year plan, a five-year plan, a 10-year plan, and setting some goals for your spending. Yeah, I really like the idea of just being very intentional of why you're doing it, aligning with your values. First off, you have to to identify what your values are, at least for that point in your life, because they will change over time somewhat. But the point is to be very intentional and be and if you know what your values or values are, then you can align your resources, which is your time, effort, or energy, and money. And you said you might feel out of sync with others, but I think if you really do that intentionally, you feel way more in sync with yourself, and that's much more important than caring what other people think or the perception of what other people have of you.
00:14:11
Speaker
Absolutely. One thing I've become increasingly conscious of in interacting with older adults, um and it may have to do with our specific demographic, the Morningstar dot.com readers and viewers, they tend to be fairly affluent group. They're investors. They're engaged in investing. But one problem that I think has been under discussed in the realm of retirement planning is people actually giving themselves permission to spend what they could spend.
00:14:43
Speaker
I think that it's very hard to flip that switch from being a savior and kind of you may have had that as your identity while you were or at least one of your identities while you were in accumulation mode that i'm you know i'm a person who defers gratification. I am not necessarily a spender. Well, at some point you have to get comfortable with spending from your portfolio. um and And I think that that is something that we probably haven't discussed enough in the context of retirement accumulation.
Mindset Shift: From Saving to Spending
00:15:15
Speaker
Like how do you give yourself permission to actually spend what you could spend?
00:15:20
Speaker
Yeah, and I'm not sure if you know them, but there's some friends of mine who are on Rameet's podcast, and you're probably aware of this because I think it made a big like splash. ah Carl and Mandy Jensen are... You don't know them, no. they Yeah, so he's got a pretty rep blog reputable blog, and she's the co-host of Bigger Pockets podcast and Bigger Pockets Money podcast. And they live in Colorado, they've accumulated more than a net worth of greater than 4 million. So Rameet had them on, and they were talking about how they have trouble spending the money or getting out of their old habits. And I know that personally, good friends, great people, and Rameet was pretty hard on them. But in my conversations with them afterwards, they so they said ah a lot had come to light and the amount of support and they've got from
00:16:13
Speaker
people in the financial independence community and and the financial community at large. And so I do like that Ramit is having those kinds of conversations and bringing you know value to not only just people who are trying to accumulate the wealth, but also ah ah just make like adjustments to behaviors of those who have basically identified their whole lifestyle through a series of very, very narrow habits of saving and being frugal and ah watching every penny that you spend. But yeah, so that was a pretty popular popular podcast. I did hear about that now that you mention it. i didn't I didn't know the specific names involved, but I did see you re meet ah commenting on that particular discussion. um
00:17:00
Speaker
And I do think that sometimes when I talk about this permission to spend thing, retirees are thinking that I'm saying that, oh, you need to go out to dinner every night or buy a luxury car that you don't want. i'm not i I don't think that's what any of us are saying. In fact, maybe it's giving the funds away. ah And that counts as spending too, but it's a different form of spending, you know, helping your loved ones earlier than would have been the case if you left the money to them after you pass away. I think there's a lot that's suboptimal about kids inheriting assets when they're in their 50s or 60s, because they the die is kind of set on their lives at that life stage that, yes, it might make a big difference for someone who's dramatically underfunded for retirement, but um not necessarily. And the example I often give is that
00:17:55
Speaker
When my husband and I were buying our first house in 1994, we were kind of looking around. um And I remember my dad said we had looked at a house we liked that was a little out of our price range. Not a lot, just a little. And my dad said, what if we helped with that? And they gave us some money it wasn't a huge sum of money that helped us get into a you know a better house and we were able to live in it for i don't know fifteen years before we moved to a different house but. We love to the house we love the community and.
00:18:29
Speaker
When my parents passed away we ended up inheriting more money from my mom and dad but ah it was that initial gift which was much smaller than the than the funds that we inherited at their deaths but it was a much more impactful ah gift. And that counted as retirement savings for them or retirement spending, that gift that they gave to us in 1994. But um you know I think that they would have said that it was very well worth it. And it was certainly a real difference maker for us. we never needed and dish We never asked or needed to ask them for money again. um But it it was that initial gift that that made such a difference. And I want people to think about that, smaller gifts earlier.
00:19:13
Speaker
And that is for someone who is, I'm financially independent and I'm not like a trillionaire or anything, but but it is something when you get to, I'm 46 years old and I've got children and one is just entering adulthood, the other one's 10. But it is something I think about, well, how do you transfer your wealth to, because it if if it doesn't happen now, it's gonna happen when you die and then you have no control of how necessarily like no influence on how they receive the money, how they use it. You can't guide them, you're no longer there. but So it is something I think about a lot as far as at what point in my life do I start transitioning my own wealth
Financial Support for Children and Independence
00:19:51
Speaker
to my kids. yeah And then of course there's tax implications, there's there's all those things, but the the highest motivator would be making sure that that I have a role in helping them with that transition.
00:20:05
Speaker
Yeah, i I think it's a huge topic of conversation among parents ah about how to help kids, how to not create a dependency, because that's an issue too. I have a lot of financial planner friends and I was out with a couple of ah them one night and we started talking about you know adult children, especially of wealthier parents, ah in some cases do have an unhealthy financial dependency on their parents. um And with these financial planner friends it was like what i felt like i was leaving a support group because this was such a big problem for them actually helping parents not over give to their children because i think parents can air too much in that direction too.
00:20:48
Speaker
and anecdotally um in talking to some adult parents who have. Done that and have created kind of an unhealthy financial dependency i think there's a lot of um kind of shame about that about the sense that oh you know my child hasn't thrived. And they still are highly dependent on on me even at an age where they should be fully launched. So there I think can be kind of a negative side to over giving. So it's it's a fine line. It's obviously very individual family specific and dependent on that the family's own finances. But um it's a topic that I think deserves more discussion probably than it's gotten.
00:21:31
Speaker
No, I agree. When I was researching this new book that you're releasing in just a few months, September, I believe it's officially released on Amazon. That's right. Amazon, all the usual places, but yes, Amazon. I know a lot of people are looking forward to that. So I saw a familiar name when I was reading the description and that name is a good friend of mine, Jordan Grummet, also known as Doc G and other circles. But he has, he retired a few years ago. He was a hospice, doctor. And I know he wrote a book talking about like what really matters in life. And so I was really excited when I saw his his name listed in the description. I'm like, oh, that's great. More people get to listen to this message. He talked about living without regrets in your book. What advice do you have for ensuring that retirees live happily
Exploring New Endeavors and Life Purposes
00:22:22
Speaker
and without regrets? It's it's kind of hard to say that nobody has regrets, but what can we do?
00:22:27
Speaker
Yeah, I love that chapter with Jordan. He's one of my favorite people in this whole world. In fact, I remember i when I read Jordan's book, i and I was prepping to have him on our podcast, I remember thinking, I get to do this for a job because this is like what's more important than this, than thinking about all of the things that Jordan talks about. um A key message in Jordan's chapter, and Jordan is a hospice doctor, ah where he still works with patients who are dying, who have very little time left on the earth. And ah a key message from Jordan's interaction with people at that life stage is that they regret things that they didn't try, that they wanted to try but didn't try. So I think that that is a key takeaway for me from Jordan's ah conversation that that's in the book is just
00:23:23
Speaker
Try if you have things, whether it's you know some big picture thing like you want to write a book or you want to start start a foundation or you have some hobby that you've let lie dormant, something that you really loved that you did when you were younger. just get back in there and try. ah Because he gives a really moving example of a guy who was who was dying of leukemia, and I think it was leukemia, um who came to the end of his life and loved to regale everyone with how he had climbed, ah he had not
00:24:00
Speaker
Made it to the top of Everest but he had attempted to climb Mount Everest and it was just one of the most important things that he had done in his life he hadn't ah actually you know summited Everest but he had tried to do it and that achievement. I stuck with him and stood out as one of the most memorable things that he had done so we all have our own list of things that we want to do or just activities that we love and that's something that Jordan talks about to that you know it's so important to have. Purpose and he distinguishes what he calls big p purpose so things like starting a foundation or.
00:24:44
Speaker
writing a book from things that he calls small p purpose and he got me really inspired ah talking about some of the small p purpose things that we can do so it might be ah being just the best partner that you could be to your spouse or it might be um getting back into some hobby that that you loved. Um, or road tripping with your, with your spouse, uh, to the national parks or whatever, but just spend some time thinking about what do I want to achieve in these remaining years of my life? Um, Michael Finca talked about how, you know, we, we might think about our lives as a series of dots on a page that, uh, if we're retiring at 65, we've got 65 dots already down. We might have 25 more dots.
00:25:35
Speaker
And so think about those precious dots and make sure that you are living your life in in an intentional way where you're actually achieving the small pea purpose things as well as the big pea purpose things. Money is a part of this conversation. So it's a balance between your financial situation and your, I don't wanna say existential, but but your purpose and how you spend your energy in the world.
Adaptability in Retirement Planning and Life Stages
00:26:03
Speaker
How do you suggest retirees implement your lessons from your book ah to retire happily?
00:26:10
Speaker
I think a key one is flexibility. I loved the chapter with Jamie Hopkins where he talks about flexibility slash adaptability. I think that's such an important component of all this where we might think about our retirement life cycle as a series of stages. And sometimes this has been kind of short-handed as like go-go, slow-go, no-go. um But you might think about your retirement Life and your spending as a series of stages um and things might change along the way just in terms of your activities how much you're spending how much you're withdrawing from the portfolio.
00:26:53
Speaker
um When we look at the data on how retirees actually spend, we do see that retirees retirement spending is not a straight line, that people tend to spend less as they age. They don't give themselves as you know an inflation adjustment every year. They spend less than the inflation rate or their spending increases at a rate less than the inflation rate. So planning to adapt as you go i think is one of the best things you can do um one thing i have come away with my interactions with older adults is just that i want to be flexible like i wanted.
00:27:33
Speaker
I'll eat anything you put in front of me. I'll hear out any any reasonable viewpoint that I just want to stay flexible. um That's one key thing that I want to take into retirement, um not just with respect to my finances, though that's important, but with all aspects of life, staying flexible, not being stubborn and set in my ways. If I have loved ones who are telling me that I should consider doing something, I'm not going to just dig in my heels. and look the other way and ignore everyone. So that that's one thing that I came came away from the book with is the importance of staying flexible, staying adaptable with finances and with the rest of life. Have you received any feedback from the early readers or the ahead copies that you sent out that made you rethink any part of the book ah in terms of achieving a happy retirement?
00:28:26
Speaker
Really, I've gotten such good feedback. So I did send the book out for endorsements and kind of created a dream team of endorsers ah to take a look at the book. People like Michael Kitsies and Manisha Khatakore. ah And the feedback was just so lovely. People seem to really dig the book. And so I'm i'm happy with the reception as I was working on it, I literally had a couple of nights where I was so excited that I couldn't sleep. I was like, I can't wait for people to see this. And so that's been the reception. I mean, I would say a few people have said that they wish they were in it and it was hard to make the cuts because I do have a good, I'm lucky to have a good kind of Rolodex of people, especially from working on my podcast. um And certainly there were many great retirement think thinkers who aren't in the book.
00:29:18
Speaker
ah ah And another thing that I heard, um I guess a piece of feedback just on the concept of the book, the book leverages retirement experts, but it seems like a great follow-up book would be interviews with actual retirees, non-professional investors, not professional investors about what they did right in retirement, because I think that there's a wealth of knowledge to be gained from just talking to regular people. about what they're doing, how they're doing. Invariably someone has an example of kind of a super-ager, someone who is really ah doing retirement right. um One person I know of is Paul Merriman.
00:30:01
Speaker
who is a retirement educator now. He's a retired financial advisor. But you know you sometimes hear about, well, your human capital ebbs away as you age. at And Paul Merriman is the opposite example of that. He's in his 80s and continuing to go strong, just making a contribution ah to make the world a better place. So those kinds of examples, I think, could be another great book. I think Paul is the reason you and I are actually talking right now. Oh, is that right? I think so. Yeah, yeah I'm pretty sure it's him. I love Paul. He's one of the great individuals I've i've gotten to know in this um on this journey.
00:30:40
Speaker
He really is. I remember I was just talking to him on a video chat once and my son walked in and Paul just started singing some song to him and he was yet much younger. He was like six or seven or maybe eight years old, maybe seven, I don't know. But it was very nice of Paul to be that. Just son doesn't know who he is. He's just on the screen. But it was nice that they had that little interaction. He's one of the kindest, best people he he really is. He goes, I saw him as recently as just a few months ago. He was down in Palm Springs and I drove up and we had a quick visit. That was nice to see him. That's wonderful. Do you see any trends that, whether it's from within the financial community or other experts that you've talked to or things that you're seeing online, are there trends that we should be aware of so that we can maybe say, oh, that's interesting and then go do some additional research and allow it to help us live happier lives in retirement?
00:31:34
Speaker
Yeah, one is ah this idea of phased retirement. It's something that I've been ah working on writing about it. I jokingly call it me search, you know, sort of like just trying to figure this out myself and. ah I think that we're going to see more phased retirement, but I i think sometimes people think too narrowly about it. i I will say I thought too narrowly about it. I thought, okay, you know, maybe you go from 40 hours a week to 30 to 15 or whatever.
00:32:05
Speaker
And yes that that indeed might be a component of it because forty hours a week is ah a big chunk of time to give to an employer but i'd like the idea of people thinking more expansively about kind of the ah the substance of their work so if you can get yourself into a position where. You're doing more of the work that you love your casting off parts of your job that you don't love as much and admittedly that's kind of a luxury good where you gotta be sitting in a good position with your employer to be able to pick and choose what you do and and i will say that you know some of the things that.
00:32:45
Speaker
ah you want to cast off are probably things that you've gotten good at over the years. you know The thing that you want to step away from may be the thing that your employer really wants you to keep doing. So it's not necessarily simple, but I think that more older adults should be looking at that kind of ah phased retirement. Because as Laura Carstensen says in the book, the way We work is what's not good for us, but work is good for us, like doing something and it doesn't have to be paid work, but doing something that gets you up in the morning, that gets you into contact with other people, that might confer a sense of purpose. It's super valuable to us as human beings and there might also be financial side benefits. So I think we'll see more kind of phased retirement. I'd like to see people get think expansively about it.
00:33:38
Speaker
I also would like people to recognize that they are perhaps a little less in control of their retirement dates than they might like to think they are.
Reality vs. Expectations in Retirement: Health and Wealth
00:33:47
Speaker
um Because when you look at the data on when people said they expected to retire and when they actually retired, you see a disconnect there. So generally people think that they'll be able to work longer. Then they're able to work and there are a lot of things that can get in the way of someone being able to to to continue working. But that's an important dimension of this. And um we did our podcast with an Anita Mukherjee at University of Wisconsin.
00:34:18
Speaker
A year or so ago where she talked about the spoils of working longer are disproportionately falling to healthier, wealthier people, that this is not an equal opportunity thing. That's the way our culture is, that unfortunately not everyone is able to continue working who might want to. um So that's kind of ah a separate dimension, but I think that there's definitely a socioeconomic um ah dimension to all of this.
00:34:50
Speaker
I know you talked about being more flexible in your own life, but we talked about a lot of different ideas and many ideas that we didn't talk about. How are you using all of this in your own life? Because I know you're an author, you've written a number of books, you're on not only your own podcast, but you're on many other people's podcast as guests. You have a real job with Morningstar. And I have no idea of what else you're into, but that doesn't sound like retirement to me. So how are you, or are you even trying to transition into a, what a normal person would consider a retirement?
00:35:24
Speaker
Yeah, it's it it's interesting. It's a work in progress. And I'm also the um president of the John C Bogle Center for Financial Literacy. So that's something that i is a volunteer activity that I'm I'm into. um So it's a balancing act. I feel lucky because I have realized um and I have to credit Scott Burns, who's a retirement columnist. ah he He's in his 80s now. He had been a retirement columnist for the Dallas Morning News for many years. um and I think maybe USA Today or another big outlet. um But he said as he was kind of moving along toward retirement, he realized yeah he he made the point to me, maybe in our podcast, maybe offline to me, I realized that that my highest best use in this world probably wasn't stocking shelves in the food pantry.
00:36:18
Speaker
That it's probably doing some version of the work that i did throughout my working career where he felt like his work was inherently altruistic all educational and i kind of feel the same that um the work that i get to do is. does feel like community service to me in a lot of ways, where i at least that's what I'm trying to do, that I'm trying to focus on things that are helpful. And that's, you know, real it's such a luxury to get to wake up in the morning and say, what are the retirement financial planning topics that are giving people trouble right now? How can I help them think this through by writing something, by researching, by doing a podcast on this topic?
00:37:05
Speaker
So you know that's what i decided at least for now you know i want to focus on those things that do feel educational slash altruistic. There are a few things that i'd like to do less of so i'm not a big fan of having meetings i'm doing a little less work travel than i once did. so that I can enjoy my personal travel more. um So I'm trying to make some some changes around the margins. I'm i'm now a full-time remote worker, so I'm able to go into the office and I do love my time in the office, but just kind of an on an as-needed, as-wanted basis, which is really great too. So just kind of trying to be thoughtful and deliberate about how I use my time and my energies is is kind of the direction where I'm headed.
00:37:55
Speaker
Well, Christine, it's a great to meet you. So we look forward to your book coming out. Again, it's How to Retire, Lessons from 20 Retirement Thought Leaders. I wish you the best of luck. Thank you very much for chatting with me today, and thank you all for watching and listening. Thanks, David.