The E-Shaped Economy: Why Many Americans Keep Spending Despite Economic Anxiety
Why do Americans keep spending despite economic anxiety? Explore how wealth, employment income, and side hustles may support spending in an E-shaped economy.
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Why do Americans keep spending despite economic anxiety? Explore how wealth, employment income, and side hustles may support spending in an E-shaped economy.
As the article points out, there are a lot of deep seated reasons why people don’t spend when they clearly have the money to enjoy retirement. Fear and habit’s are two of the pillars of resistance to ...
Holiday spending decisions can affect your finances long after the decorations come down. Asking five questions before each purchase may help you avoid unnecessary debt, stay within your holiday budge...
In her recently released book The Forever Paycheck, Jean Chatzky—CEO and founder of HerMoney—encourages retirees to fund essential retirement spending with Social Security and non‑risky investments, a...
It's a big change to go from putting money away to spending it. I'm considering spending a reasonable amount on a tow vehicle and camper but it's not a necessary expenditure. My mind swings from 'now'...
A while back, I came across a thread on Reddit that asked this question: what expenses do you regret avoiding to reach FIRE? The post Do People Who FIRE Regret Not Spending Money on Things They Could ...
Shifting from saving to spending in retirement requires a new way of thinking. Answer these five questions to find out if you're ready for this next chapter.
Being flexible with spending absolutely matters in financial planning and it often gets overlooked when people step into retirement. Most people look at their budget and the assets that they've accumu...
Sustainable retirement spending begins with quantifying the present value of your essential expenses and then allocating the remaining funded status toward discretionary “menu items” such as travel, h...
Fall spending often increases because back-to-school costs, seasonal expenses, holiday travel, and gift shopping happen within a few months of each other. Preparing for those expenses now may help you...
Retirement planning is often dominated by withdrawal rules, Monte Carlo probabilities, and portfolio‑centric heuristics. But none of these tools directly measure the core financial question every reti...
Retirement researchers increasingly recognize that real spending does not remain flat throughout retirement. As Dr. David Blanchett emphasized in his recent Think Advisor article: “Integrating reduced...
Preventive health spending is a type of risk management that can lower future costs while protecting your health and your money. Here's how it works.
What tools or methods do you use to keep track of your monthly spending? I prefer organizing my expenses into categories so they align with my overall budget totals each month, which helps me stay on ...
What if I told you that you might be better off spending more?
You've accrued wealth to finally retire, but your "best" retirement involves learning how to enjoy the life your wealth was meant to support. As part of our "Freedom After 50" series, hospice doctor J...
Retirees can trade financial anxiety for peace of mind by adopting these practical habits that build on structure, flexibility and consistency.
Take the time to reduce your anxiety about spending money in retirement, and you’ll feel better about spending money on things that make you happy.
This week in Kiplinger:https://www.kiplinger.com/retirement/happy-retirement/master-the-art-of-spending-in-retirement No wonder, then, that many retirees at all levels of wealth are pulling the reins ...
Many people find it tough to shift from saving to tapping wealth once they stop work. Here's how to enjoy your money more — without fear of running out.
There are bad ways to spend your HSA, good ways to spend it, and great ways to spend it. Let's discuss how we decided to spend our HSA. The post 4 Reasons Why We’re Spending Our HSA Money — And Why Yo...
Retirement spending estimates are often too low, but a retirement spending plan can change that. Here’s how to keep your money from running out. The post Retirement Spending Plan: How to Know If Your ...
Going from accumulator to decumulator is not like flipping a switch. It’s psychologically recalibrating your entire money life. The post The Psychology of Spending in Retirement appeared first on The ...
How trading your savings today will give you a permanent raise tomorrow.
Many plans focus on how much has been saved, but it's how much you spend that ultimately determines whether your plan works.
One of the more common retirement concerns I hear from new subscribers is the transition from saving for retirement to spending retirement savings. During our careers, we’re programmed to sacrifice sp...
Physicians have gotten better about entering retirement with serious financial muscle. Yet many still struggle with peace about actually spending ... Read more
Playing it too safe could mean trips not taken, educations not funded, life not enjoyed. Don't abandon caution — just build contingency plans for your portfolio.
We’ve all read the research about the “Go-go, slow-go and no-go” periods of retirement and decreased real-dollar spending as we age, but contrary to observed research, most decumulation strategies tod...
When I think about the start of spring, I think about spending the Easter holiday with my family, the colors returning to our green spaces, a little more sunshine, and maybe a shower or two. Hail the ...
Photo by Gabriel Meinert The subject of spending seems to be getting a lot of attention of late in and around the financial independence (FI) community. The issue seems to be that those pursuing FI ar...
The Actuarial Approach: Employs an easy-to-understand and robust financial metric (Household Funded Status) Permits adoption of easy-to-implement guardrails that suggest future spending changes Uses b...
F67, M72. We get about income of 5500 a month spend about 4,000 a month and have $1500 left over, Next year that we will pay off our last debt and will have another $500 available. We have rebuilt our...
This post is a follow-up to our post of August 23, 2025 where we encouraged financial advisors and DIYers to ditch Monte Carlo modeling and its probability of success metric and adopt the Actuarial Ap...
A wide-ranging and insightful conversation with Morningstar's Christine Benz, where we discuss her annual retirement income research, the realities of spending in retirement, and the challenge many re...
Transitioning from saving to spending in retirement can be tricky, but devising a strategic plan can help ensure a smooth and worry-free retirement....
Get peace of mind in retirement with the 'Pay Yourself' rule....
I am planning to retire (hopefully) soon, and I keep reading things that say I'll need 70% of my pre-retirement income, or 80%, or 90%. The idea being that you will lose some of the expenses related t...
The 'guardrails approach' to retirement spending signals when you can spend more and when you need to rein it in, giving you greater flexibility in your post-work life....
A little more than ten years ago, the Financial Analysts Journal released “The Only Spending Rule You Will Ever Need” by M. Barton Warning and Laurence Siegel. Recently, Stefan Sharkansky ...
If time is truly more precious than money, then spending money to buy back your time is the wisest trade of all. Here's an example of overcoming my frugality to live a better life. Perhaps one of the ...
As discussed in our previous post of September 28, 2025, there are lots of levers in the Actuarial Financial Planner (AFP) that can be pulled to make your spending plan in retirement more or less cons...
Spending changes for your household between when kids were in high school and retirement Assuming your spending actually went down, and you had kids, what level of decline did you see in household spe...
Here’s how to spend guilt-free when you are in retirement....
How can you wait until age 70 for Social Security but still spend more in the years before then? Here are some ideas to try. The post How to Wait Until 70 for Social Security Without Spending Less app...
We didn't hold our monthly budget meeting for a while last year, so we had to do a little catching up. The spending totals were shocking. The post Life Got Really Expensive (We’re Spending Twice...
Audit your spending to uncover patterns, cut waste, and align expenses with goals. Small adjustments will boost financial confidence. The post Audit Your Spending: Go Beyond Budgeting with 5 Ways to R...
Everybody has their own number for how much they’ll spend in retirement. See if your's is in line with the averages....
Follow the 'Me-First" rule and you won't have to worry about running out of money when the stock market goes south....
Force of habit. I’ve always found that phrase a little irksome. Not because I consider myself some paragon of self-control, ... Read more...