537: The Most Overlooked Elements of a Successful Retirement with Fritz Gilbert
Retire With Purpose - The Retirement Podcast
Casey Weade
4.7 • 556 Ratings
🗓️ 8 December 2025
⏱️ 67 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today, I'm thrilled to welcome Fritz Gilbert back for his second appearance on the podcast. Fritz is an award-winning blogger and author of The Retirement Manifesto, one of the most influential retirement blogs in the country. He has now been retired for six years, and while many people think the big transition ends the day you leave the workforce, Fritz's journey proves that retirement continues to evolve in meaningful, surprising, and deeply personal ways.
Recently, he announced he is stepping away from full-time blogging to spend more of his life "outside the walls," shifting his time toward family, exercise, charitable work, and the flexibility that first drew him to retirement. Fritz explains why stepping back wasn't a loss—it was a necessary reshuffling of cards in the ongoing "game of retirement poker."
In our conversation, Fritz discusses the surprising emotional journey of redefining retirement. He explains why he has never struggled with boredom, depression, or identity loss, and highlights how he avoided the most difficult retirement phase that nearly 70% face.
We also talk about one of the most overlooked elements of retirement satisfaction: giving yourself permission to spend your money—or gift to your kids—while you can enjoy the benefits, rather than clinging to your savings out of habit or fear. Fritz explains why intentional spending is not only rational but also often essential for living a fully realized, purposeful retirement.
In this podcast interview, you'll learn:
- How Fritz avoided boredom, identity loss, and the infamous "retirement dip."
- The surprising emotional transition his wife experienced after caregiving.
- Why replacing the non-financial benefits of work is a must.
- How to refine a bucket strategy and reduce interest-rate risk in retirement.
- The real challenge of Roth conversions and why liquidity matters.
- Why many retirees spend too little and how Fritz overcame that fear.
- How to support adult children without jeopardizing their independence.
- Why the 90/10 rule becomes unavoidable in retirement.
Show Notes: HowardBailey.com/537
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The one retirement question, I did a series on this, what's one piece of advice you'd give somebody to ensure the most successful retirement they can have? And I asked maybe 10 older people, not a single one of them talked about money. I was like, man, that's fascinating. It was all the non-financial stuff. And as you go through the transition, you start recognizing money. |
| 0:22.6 | That's not what brings you joy and happiness. |
| 0:24.2 | It's purely a tool. |
| 0:25.8 | The challenge is finding what you're going to do with that financial freedom that you've built |
| 0:30.5 | that will bring you joy and purpose. |
| 0:32.6 | And that's why the 90% non-financial focus starts happening is because you start searching for what's going to |
| 0:38.4 | really bring you fulfillment. |
| 0:49.5 | What happens after a successful retirement? |
| 0:52.5 | Today, we're sitting down with Fritz Gilbert, retiree, blogger, and the voice behind the retirement manifesto to talk about his next big transition, stepping away from full-time blogging and leaning even deeper into the life he's designed post career. |
| 1:06.4 | I promise you this conversation will leave you inspired as we cover everything from financial |
| 1:11.8 | strategy to life strategy. My name is Casey Weed and welcome to the podcast. You may be watching |
| 1:17.6 | on YouTube and if you are watching on YouTube, I encourage you to check out the Retire with Purpose |
| 1:22.3 | podcast. If you're not watching this on YouTube, maybe you're just a podcast listener. |
| 1:26.8 | Go check out our |
| 1:27.9 | YouTube channel. I promise you, you'll enjoy diving deeper and some of the more detailed things |
| 1:33.4 | that we go through over there. And you'll obviously get to share in some of the visuals that we |
| 1:38.2 | have and feel like you're part of the conversation with Fritz and I today. And today I have Fritz. |
| 1:44.0 | So we have Fritz Gilbert back on the show. |
| 1:46.4 | Again, he is the award-winning blogger of the Retirement Manifesto, where he focuses on helping |
| 1:51.9 | people achieve a great retirement, capturing the present before it becomes the past, as it |
| 1:57.7 | chronicles his journey to and through retirement. And after 10 years of writing, Fritz recently announced he is stepping away from full-time |
| 2:05.9 | blogging to live more of his life outside the walls, as he says. |
... |
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