Replay: How to Retire with Christine Benz

Retirement Answer Man

Roger Whitney, CFP®, CIMA®, RMA, CPWA®

Lifeplanning, Retirementplanning, Financialplanning, Saving, Careerplanning, Self-improvement, Education, Retirementpodcast, Investing, Business, Investmentmanagement, Retirement

4.7 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 2 July 2025

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

All July long, we’re featuring a special replay series of standout episodes—and this week is no exception.

Join us for a special episode as we welcome Christine Benz to discuss her book, "How to Retire." In a captivating conversation in the Rock Retirement Club, we dive into topics like long-term care, the 4% rule, investing strategies, and simplification. Featuring insights from Fritz Gilbert, a member of the club and contributor to Christine's book, this episode offers a holistic view of retirement planning. Discover how to balance financial and non-financial aspects for a fulfilling retirement journey.

*Episode Originally Aired December 4, 2024*

OUTLINE OF THIS EPISODE OF RETIREMENT ANSWER MAN

(00:55) We are going to play some past impactful episodes for the whole month of July

INTERVIEW WITH CHRISTINE BENZ

(01:28) Today we start off the month with a replay of our interview with Christine Benz.
(03:17) Roger asks about the goal for the readers of this book.
(04:48) Christine: The goal was to cover retirement in a really holistic way and include as much non-financial as financial information on retirement planning.
(06:10) Roger thinks the interview style of the book helped make it more approachable.
(08:13) Roger asks Christine about any big, unexpected insights that came up when she was writing her book.
(11:12) Fritz Gilbert says I give Christine serious kudos for the approach she took and the amount of homework she did.
(12:35) Christine tells Fritz that she loves his methodical approach to dealing with the years leading up to retirement.
(14:16) Marla asks Christine if she would change anything if she was writing this book today to accommodate the 2024 election results and also asks about managing portfolios on Morningstar.
(18:15) Roger says when it comes to portfolio construction, it's easy to overcomplicate things
(21:14) Larry asks Christine what challenges her or confounds her most about her own retirement planning.
(23:35) Larry asks “Are you concerned that we may not find people to provide long term care?”
(31:08) Kevin Lyles asks Christine about asset allocation in retirement.
(37:55) Laura asks: When talking about high quality bond portfolios, do bond funds work?
(42:00) Roger asks about indexes and broad diversification.
(44:37) Roger says someone had a comment related to some of the research on small cap value and asks Christine her view on having a more diversified small cap value tilt?
(48:19) Eric asks “what is the argument for using TIPS (Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities) for retirees?”
(51:28) Roger asks Fritz if he has been simplifying his portfolio or working more on optimization since retiring in 2018.
(53:52) Roger says the optimization part of retirement sometimes dominates the conversation.
(54:44) Roger asks Christine: Have you found in your own life a balance between making sure you don’t get too complicated in investments?
(57:55) Brianna asks Christine what question she has been reflecting on after the 20 interviews?
(58:45) Christine she’s been thinking more about whether the concept of retirement is flawed.

BONUS

(01:01:26) Roger reads an excerpt from his grandfather's WWII journal

Resources Mentioned In This Episode

Wade Pfau

Morningstar

The Retirement Manifest- Fritz Gilbert

Daughterhood.org

Christine Benz

Six Shot Saturday

BOOKS

How to Retire: 20 Lessons for a Happy, Successful, and Wealthy Retirement - Christine Benz

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End - Atul Gawande

Keys to a Successful Retirement: Staying Happy, Active, and Productive in Your Retired Years - Fritz Gilbert

Rock Retirement: A Simple Guide to Help You Take Control and Be More Optimistic About the Future - Roger Whitney

Transcript

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0:00.0	Most people are unable to get what they need out of life because they're either too lazy or too afraid.
0:07.9	Phil Stutz.
0:11.4	Dang, Phil, that was a little heavy.
0:13.9	Welcome to the show dedicated to helping you not just survive retirement,
0:17.5	but to have the confidence to lean in and rock it because you're not afraid.
0:22.5	You're not lazy and you're doing the work that you need to do.
0:26.3	Yeah, I'm going through a workbook from Phil Stutz right now.
0:30.1	Working on myself as always.
0:31.9	And that quote popped out as, whoa, that's heavy.
0:35.1	I got to process that a little bit.
0:38.8	When I'm done with that workbook, we may process this on the show to help us all have more confidence to lean in and rock our
0:45.2	life. Today on the show, we are going to have Christine Benz on again. We're going to play
0:53.2	some of the most impactful interviews that we've
0:56.8	had over the last couple years this month, this entire month on the show. And the reason we're
1:01.7	doing that is one, it's the summertime and you're probably out doing cool things. And another
1:05.4	reason is I am in the thick of a major project with Tanya Nichols from Align Financial on more the advisory
1:15.3	side of formalizing some things with her.
1:18.5	Excited to talk about that once it's done.
1:21.9	But I want to make sure that we do this right because it's an important thing.
1:25.3	So it gives me some time to do that.
1:27.7	So today we're going to start off with the discussion that we do this right because it's an important thing. So it gives me some time to do that. So today we're going to start off with a discussion that we all had with Christine Ben's
1:33.8	Morning Star journalist and has she has explored retirement planning for decades. And she is
	...

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