Behavioral Finance in Retirement Planning: EDU #2536

The Retirement and IRA Show

Jim Saulnier, CFP® & Chris Stein, CFP®

Business, Investing

4.3 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 3 September 2025

⏱️ 89 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Chris’s Summary
Jim and I look at behavioral finance in retirement planning, noting that spending from secure income feels safer while drawing from assets feels like a loss. People resist balances going down after decades of saving, even though the money was built to be spent. We highlight how framing savings as deferred spending and covering the Minimum Dignity Floor with income addresses uncertainty, complexity, and the tendency for retirees to underspend.

Jim’s “Pithy” Summary
Chris and I dive into two listener-sent pieces — a Kiplinger’s article and a research report from Blanchett and Finke — and they line up perfectly with what we’ve been saying for years. Folks, this is behavioral finance! Retirees spend Social Security, pensions, and annuity checks with ease, but hesitate to touch their own savings. I call it the bottomless cup of coffee: when the pot keeps getting refilled, you drink. When it’s just a thermos, you guard it and leave joy on the table.

We also get into how framing makes all the difference. Too many people see their IRA as wealth to preserve instead of deferred spending to use. That’s why Required Minimum Distributions suddenly feel like permission slips — people spend because they think they’ve been told they can. And while loss aversion is real, taxes push those same buttons too.

This is why we push to cover the Minimum Dignity Floor with secure income. If food, utilities, transportation, housing, and healthcare are guaranteed, you take uncertainty and complexity off the table. That’s what gives you the confidence to pursue your Fun Number, knowing the basics are covered and you can spend without second-guessing every dollar.

Show Notes:
Blanchett and Finke Report

The post Behavioral Finance in Retirement Planning: EDU #2536 appeared first on The Retirement and IRA Show.

Transcript

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0:26.8	without first consulting your financial legal or tax advisor.
0:29.6	Financial planning services offered through Jim Solnior and Associates LLC, a registered investment advisor.
0:47.3	This is the retirement and IRA show coming to you from beautiful Northern Colorado.
0:52.4	Join us as certified financial planner Jim Sondier, as well as Colorado State University Finance instructor and certified financial planner Chris Stein, teach you about IRAs,
0:58.4	borrow-in-case, annuities, social security, pension plans, and estate planning in a fun and enjoyable show.
1:05.6	Whether you are listening live in Colorado or streaming from their website or iTunes podcast,
1:12.4	Jim and Chris want you to know that they're available to help you plan for your retirement.
1:15.5	Just visit their website at JimHelps.com.
1:18.7	That's Jim H-E-L-P-S dot com and click the Meet the Team button on the homepage.
1:25.0	Now here's Jim and Chris with today's show.
1:30.9	Hello. button on the homepage. Now here's Jim and Chris with today's show. Well, hello everybody and welcome to the Retirement and IRA show EDU edition for this week.
1:36.9	We finished up our Ed Slot quiz questions last week. So we're going to dive into a new topic. And today's topic was
1:47.1	kind of influenced, if you will, by a couple of articles that were sent to us by listeners,
1:55.4	that were talking about how retirees tend to treat income coming to them in retirement differently than
2:07.1	their other financial assets or resources.
2:10.8	In other words, there's a difference in spending behavior, whether a retiree is spending
	...

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