The Mental Mistakes We Make With Retirement Spending

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AltaRed
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Re: The Mental Mistakes We Make With Retirement Spending

Post by AltaRed »

Perhaps the message is for everyone to find a path that works best for them as they transition into retirement. The article covered a number of areas which should cause one to pause and think about the adjustments one can (and probably should) make in their lifestyle, to the extent they are feasible and enjoyable and affordable.

Don't get me wrong. I too enjoy a lot of simple things in life that do not cost a lot of money. My current personal (luxury) vehicle is 11 yrs old and I am not ready to give it up...yet. My Cdn cell phone is a Samsung flip phone that I have no desire to change, albeit my US phone is a 'cheap' LG Leon smartphone.

OTOH, we enjoy 'going out' so we have upped our frequency and quality of entertainment experiences by an order of magnitude. We are also putting emphasis on travel at this time....simply because we have found that time goes by uncomfortably fast in retirement and we do not want to have regrets about not having take great experiences while health permits. For example, we had intended to do a major Machu Picchu trip in Peru just over 2 years ago but had to cancel for family reasons. My SO can no longer handle that kind of physical experience... so that is now regrettably off our list. We don't want to be 85 years old and say, 'I wished we would have done X and Y'.

Bottom line: I think 2 key messages are: 1) Don't hoard the stash if one doesn't have too, and 2) don't artificially constrain oneself and then have regrets later on. Life is simply too short.
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Re: The Mental Mistakes We Make With Retirement Spending

Post by SQRT »

AltaRed wrote: 29 May 2017 10:39 Perhaps the message is for everyone to find a path that works best for them as they transition into retirement.


Bottom line: I think 2 key messages are: 1) Don't hoard the stash if one doesn't have too, and 2) don't artificially constrain oneself and then have regrets later on. Life is simply too short.
Couldn't agree more.
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Re: The Mental Mistakes We Make With Retirement Spending

Post by gonwk »

Hi folks,

I came across this thread by accident while searching the web. So, the full Article is not available in the OP link ... or am I missing something.

Thanks! :)
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Re: The Mental Mistakes We Make With Retirement Spending

Post by Peculiar_Investor »

gonwk wrote: 07 Mar 2018 22:24 Hi folks,

I came across this thread by accident while searching the web. So, the full Article is not available in the OP link ... or am I missing something.

Thanks! :)
Welcome to FWF.

I just confirmed that the link still works. However the article is behind the Wall Street Journal's paywall.

If you use a search engine such as Google or Bing to find the article title you can often click the search engine result and it will let you read the article.
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Re: The Mental Mistakes We Make With Retirement Spending

Post by amphitryon »

Here is one:

http://stegnerinvestments.com/wp-conten ... tegner.pdf

as an aside, in the article the writer notes ''....... is worth much more than, say, going out 10 times for $100 dollar meals at a pricey restaurant''. I am suggesting that the writer is a bit out of touch with going out, or a recent trip to Nevis has made me extremely jaded.
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Re: The Mental Mistakes We Make With Retirement Spending

Post by Flaccidsteele »

SQRT wrote: 26 May 2017 09:31Agree but I think it isn't always "guilt" more often just an attitude that spending money is less "satisfying" than watching it pile up.
I thought that this comment was the most interesting. What do you think is behind the feeling of satisfaction of watching money pile up?

Going back to the thread...

Emotional baggage is always associated with money (eg. "guilt", "fear", "satisfaction", "miserly", "conservative", etc.)

It's likely similar to other compensation mechanisms

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Re: The Mental Mistakes We Make With Retirement Spending

Post by Ken »

Phew, thank goodness I was able to Google the article and read it because I didn't want to pay $1 to register. LOL Actually because I couldn't be bothered registering, but saving a buck is a chuckle.
I've been retired for 3 years and I agree with the thread. JUST LAST WEEK, I finally changed my accounts so that savings accounts are automatically funding chequing. A small change to the accounts but a HUGE mental shift to a mindset that says, "if it's there then it's fair game! Spend it!".
At least I made the change. I can easily imagine lots of people do not.
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Re: The Mental Mistakes We Make With Retirement Spending

Post by chufinora »

amphitryon wrote: 08 Mar 2018 17:12as an aside, in the article the writer notes ''....... is worth much more than, say, going out 10 times for $100 dollar meals at a pricey restaurant''. I am suggesting that the writer is a bit out of touch with going out, or a recent trip to Nevis has made me extremely jaded.
To be fair he was comparing $1000 on restaurants with international business class travel - he was out of touch in both cases!

I thought the article was pretty good. What resonated with me was the 'pain or regret' bit where he compares John and Jane buying a $1400 laptop (Not out of touch there :-)) from dividends vs a stock sell, and the emotions associated with stock prices changes after a capital sale.

It is easy to say you can ignore the emotion in investing/spending decisions, but the reality for most of us is different.
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