{"id":10131,"date":"2024-09-08T08:58:02","date_gmt":"2024-09-08T12:58:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kerryhannon.com\/?p=10131"},"modified":"2024-09-08T08:58:02","modified_gmt":"2024-09-08T12:58:02","slug":"qa-how-to-retire-financially-comfortably-and-with-no-regrets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kerryhannon.com\/?p=10131","title":{"rendered":"Q&A: How to retire financially comfortably and with no regrets"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When Christine Benz\u2019s dad reached his mid-80s, Benz began to notice signs of cognitive decline. She was there to pick up where her dad left off with his finances, starting with his investment accounts and household bills and eventually managing in-home caregiving.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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That experience sent her on a path to learn more about retirement planning and share that advice with others.<\/p>\n

Benz, the director of personal finance and retirement planning for Morningstar, is the author of a new book “How to Retire: 20 Lessons for a Happy, Successful, and Wealthy Retirement<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

“One of the most heartening aspects of my work has been realizing that I don\u2019t have to figure out everything on my own,” she writes. “That\u2019s because there are deep wells of information on various aspects of retirement planning all over the place.”<\/p>\n

Benz asked 20 retirement experts to go deep on a single lesson that they believe contributes to success in retirement. They include tax planning expert\u00a0Ed Slott<\/a>; Social Security sherpa\u00a0Mary Beth Franklin<\/a>;\u00a0David Blanchett<\/a>, head of retirement research at PGIM DC Solutions, who digs into how your spending might change in retirement; and\u00a0Dr. Jordan Grumet<\/a>, author of “Taking Stock: A Hospice Doctor\u2019s Advice on Financial Independence, Building Wealth, and Living a Regret-Free Life,” which explores living a life that leaves you with no regrets.<\/p>\n

Each chapter is a lesson about how to manage some angle of retirement.<\/p>\n

Read on Yahoo Finance<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Here’s what Benz had to say about the secrets to a healthy, happy, and wealthy retirement, edited for length and clarity:<\/p>\n

Kerry Hannon: How to retire is a pretty broad topic, Christine. Why is this book important to you right now?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Christine Benz:\u00a0<\/strong>There are so many different dimensions of the decision about whether and when and how to retire. In my investigation of the topic and my work at Morningstar, I’ve realized that yes, the financial piece is an important component of it, but so is the non-financial dimension \u2014 the question of your purpose later in life, your ability to maintain relationships. I wanted to create a book that brought all of those different variables together in one place to get people to step away from retirement planning as a math problem \u2014 something to tackle with spreadsheets and, and calculators. You do need those things, but also to think about your quality of life and what brings you joy.<\/p>\n

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How did your experience with your parents impact your vision of retirement planning?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was lucky that I was very close to my parents, so I was able to observe retirement side-by-side with them. I was also able to observe that retirement is very much a process and a series of phases. In their early years of retirement in their 60s, they did a lot of travel. And then as they moved through retirement, their schedule slowed down. In their later years, both of my parents experienced cognitive decline. And so we went through hiring caregivers for them in their home. I was able to see that it’s important to plan for all of those phases to the extent that you can and the implications for housing and healthcare.<\/p>\n