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 today don’t anticipate front-loaded spending in retirement. Instead, most anticipate constant real dollar spending throughout the entire period of retirement. One of the reasons for this is that most spending strategies don’t distinguish between essential spending and discretionary spending and therefore, treat both types of expenses similarly and assume that the investor will prefer a more conservative constant real dollar spending approach.
