Robert Brokamp

Does that mean some people may be able to retire a little sooner?

Do you have an idea why that is?

I mean, your research is pretty well known about this.

But from what I can tell, it's not incorporated into the broader financial planning industry.

Or am I wrong?

Our financial planner is starting to factor this in.

A few weeks ago, we had Bill Bengen on the show, Bengen being the father of the 4% rule, which he says is now 4.7%.

Actually, in the interview, he said maybe 5.5% nowadays.

And that way of determining how much someone can spend in retirement assumes, first of all, retirement will last 30 years.

Retiree spends the same inflation adjusted about every year in retirement, which if we talked about isn't necessarily what will happen.

It doesn't assume that people change their spending based on what's going on with their portfolio.

So some assumptions there that are perhaps not reflective of real life.

So given the reality of retirement spending and the uncertainty of how long it will last, basically how long we're going to live, what do you think is the best way to determine how much a retiree could spend each year in retirement?

You talked about the ability to cut back when maybe the portfolio is down or something like that.

And you've recently written about segmenting your retiree budget by essential expenses and discretionary expenses.

And I think that helps people think about, okay, I do have this wiggle room in terms of if something happens, this is where I cut back.

And you've also written about the benefit of having a certain amount of guaranteed income to at least cover the essential expenses.

What you found is that many people, even wealthy retirees, are underspending because they're concerned about running out of money or it's just difficult to make that switch from saving to spending.

Whereas if they have a higher level of guaranteed income, they're more likely to spend it, more likely to enjoy their retirement because they know they have another check coming in next month.

You recently took a look at not only retirement spending patterns, but also retiree satisfaction.