MMasters in Business
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16 July 2025

At The Money: The Right Way to Spend Your Money in Retirement

3Frameworks
5Insights

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Frameworks in this episode

Finance5 steps

Annual Retirement Bucket Review

Refill near-term cash from suitable assets and coordinate withdrawals with taxes

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Finance5 steps

Flexible Retirement Spending Plan

Adjust withdrawals to markets, age, and planned spending instead of staying fixed

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Finance5 steps

Lifetime Giving Impact Map

Match gifts to the life stages when loved ones can use them most

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Insights & moments

The myth-busts, hot takes, explainers, and tools worth keeping.

Explainer· 3

Explainer03:33

Why Successful Savers Struggle to Spend Their Portfolios

Christine Benz says long-term saving and investing becomes part of a person's identity. After years of deferred gratification and compounding, seeing a portfolio fall from its high-water mark can feel wrong even when spending is affordable.

  • Saving and investing can become a durable identity
  • Portfolio growth rewards deferred gratification
  • Retirees may anchor on the portfolio's highest balance
  • A falling balance can feel like failure after decades of accumulation

“It's a sense of identity. I think that one builds as a saver and an investor that you are someone who defers gratification.”

Christine Benz · 03:33

“It just does not feel good to see the balance go down after a lifetime of seeing it generally escalate.”

Christine Benz · 04:00
#retirement psychology#saving#identity#decumulation
Explainer04:13

The Long-Term-Care Fear Behind Retirement Underspending

The possibility of years of expensive care creates a late-life liability that retirees cannot easily size. Benz identifies that uncertainty as one reason people without long-term-care insurance may resist spending assets earlier.

  • Long-term care can create a large late-life expense
  • The duration and cost of care are uncertain
  • People may have valid reasons for not buying insurance
  • The unresolved risk can suppress current spending

“People who have not purchased long term care insurance and may have really good reasons to not have done so, still have this risk of…”

Christine Benz · 04:16
#long-term care#healthcare#risk#retirement
Explainer13:55

The Three Wild Cards That Make Retirement Drawdown Hard

Retirement drawdown must account for three variables that cannot be known in advance: lifespan, market returns, and inflation. That uncertainty pushes many retirees toward conservative spending because avoiding ruin feels more important than consuming more today.

  • No one knows their exact retirement time horizon
  • Future market performance is uncertain
  • Inflation changes the spending required to maintain living standards
  • The combined uncertainty encourages conservative withdrawals

“The key issue is that you're dealing with a bunch of wild cards.”

Christine Benz · 13:55

“You don't know how long you'll live, and you may have a little bit of a window into that as you age, but most of…”

Christine Benz · 13:57
#drawdown#longevity#markets#inflation

Tool· 2

Tool11:33

How a Donor-Advised Fund Can Handle Appreciated Employer Stock

Benz describes a donor-advised fund as a charitable mechanism available across different wealth levels. Donating a concentrated appreciated holding can reduce portfolio concentration, create a deduction, avoid the associated capital-gains tax, and fund ongoing grants.

  • A donor-advised fund can receive concentrated employer stock
  • The donation can remove concentration risk from the portfolio
  • The contribution may produce a tax deduction
  • The embedded capital gain is not realised as a taxable sale
  • The fund can support ongoing charitable gifts

“The donor advised fund is a really nice mechanism for people of varying means, and it's especially appropriate for people who have concentrated positions in…”

Christine Benz · 11:36

“Once you've established the donor advice funds, you can make those charitable gifts on an ongoing basis.”

Christine Benz · 12:13
#charity#donor-advised fund#tax planning#concentrated stock
Tool12:31

Qualified Charitable Distributions Can Reduce an IRA Tax Burden

For eligible retirees, Benz highlights qualified charitable distributions as another giving mechanism. She says people older than seventy and a half can direct part of an IRA to charity, with an annual limit that had risen above $100,000 at the time of the episode.

  • The distribution comes directly from an IRA
  • Eligibility begins after age seventy and a half
  • The recipient is a charity
  • The mechanism can reduce the IRA's tax burden
  • The cited annual limit was above $100,000

“Using the charitable Qualified Charitable distribution from IRAS can be a really nice strategy as well, where you are giving a portion of your IRA…”

Christine Benz · 12:31

“It's a way to reduce the tax burden associated.”

Christine Benz · 13:00
#ira#charity#qualified charitable distribution#tax planning