For 30 or 40 years, the financial instructions are remarkably consistent: save more, spend less, contribute to your 401(k), and don’t touch the money. Then retirement arrives, and you’re suddenly supposed to reverse decades of behavior by withdrawing money from an account you’ve trained yourself to protect. If spending retirement savings makes you uncomfortable even when the numbers say you can afford it, you’re far from unusual. Recent research suggests many retirees preserve surprisingly large portions of their wealth long after leaving the workforce instead of steadily drawing it down as traditional retirement models predict. The challenge is partly mathematical, but it’s also psychological: how do you confidently spend money when you no longer have a paycheck replacing it?
