Planning for retirement is a daunting, multi-faceted experience.
Assuming it’s your retirement we’re talking about, it’s daunting because of two big financial questions: 1) Do you have enough to live the life you'd like to live in retirement? And 2) Will you have enough to last throughout your retirement, come what may?
It’s multi-faceted because retirement isn’t just about money. It’s about what you’ll do in retirement, where you’ll live, who (outside of your immediate family) you’ll do life with, how your health will hold up, and more.
That’s what’s particularly helpful about the book How to Retire by Christine Benz, director of personal finance and retirement planning at Morningstar. Benz has been writing about all of this for quite a while and, in the process, has gotten to know experts on a multitude of retirement-related topics. Her book is a series of interviews with 20 such experts, including one where she turns the tables and serves as the subject matter expert on the “bucket strategy,” an appealing way of organizing a retirement portfolio in retirement that she has written about extensively.
The cover article in the February 2025 issue of the Sound Mind Investing newsletter is an excerpt from Benz’s interview with Wade Pfau on knowing your “retirement income style.” That’s a fresh and helpful way of deciding how best to turn a retirement nest egg into a series of retirement paychecks.
Because so many other retirement-related topics are addressed in How to Retire, I talked with Benz to continue the conversation into some of these other areas. To watch or listen to the interview, click below.
