Sunday, April 21, 2013

How to Balance Saving Money With Enjoying Retirement 
Dave Bernard (US News, April 19, 2013)

"...you may have to accept that you cannot do everything your heart desires.  But you do not necessarily want to deny yourself of [all] life's pleasures either.  Try to be realistic about what you can afford and then make smart choices."

I agree with Mr. Bernard, and have written several times about the two potentially conflicting goals of  1) spending enough to enjoy a certain standard of living and 2) not spending so much that accumulated savings is depleted prior to death.   As mentioned in my March, 2010 article, retirees who worry about outliving their retirement assets often spend too little, denying themselves an enjoyable retirement."

The key to managing the risks of withdrawing too much or too little of your accumulated savings is to have a good sense of how much you can spend each year.  In my opinion, this knowledge can only come from crunching the numbers each year using the spreadsheet and process set forth in this website, or some other reasonable approach.  If you know how much you can spend each year, you are in a much better position to make the "smart choices" that Mr. Bernard refers to.