Nov 20, 2024
With the holiday shopping season nigh, allow us if you will to put a new twist on the old Scrooge tale, starring a retired father who's morphed into a miser.
Let's call this 70-year-old guy Harry (an easier name to pronounce than Ebenezer). His problem is that despite his $1 million nest egg, he'd rather hang onto his wealth than spend a dime on anyone, including himself.
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While this former mechanic could afford to eat beef Wellington every single night, Harry considers Chicken McNuggets an extravagant dinner. "I can't help it," he says. "My parents grew up during the Great Depression."
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Depression? Sure: His son Jimmy is plenty depressed. He only wants to see his old man live it up a little. "What's he waiting for?" Jimmy asks himself. "He worked his butt off to earn the sweet life. Time will run out long before the money does.”
But the issue, it turns out, is not so much financial as psychological. Even billionaires face it. And it's more common than you may think.
Why some retirees won’t part with their wealth
A recent Morningstar piece examines the “retirement consumption puzzle,” where those in their golden years cut back on spending to excess.
By the time these retirees can enjoy the spoils of their wealth, those sound money habits can be so ingrained that it becomes difficult to ease up once they’re finally in the position to do so.
Sometimes the causes are organic. Gone are the days of eating out daily for work lunches or commuting.
But the current class of retirees had parents who grew up during the Great Depression and in many cases passed on frugal habits. It’s hard to forget what it felt like to go without, when only about one-quarter of the nation employed. Home haircuts and foregoing visits to doctors and dentists became commonplace — it’s no surprise many of their children picked up those tendencies. Today’s retirees hit thrift shops (AARP has even published a 40-tip guide) or dine on fast food instead of fancy meals.
Experts on the psychology of money go so far as to characterize the scarcity mindset as the very flipside of compulsive spending. SkilledSmart founder Paridhi Jain writes that “spending less only focuses on the quantity of spending, leading to an obsession with the dollar value, the cost, and the price tag.”
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Four ways to loosen up
So while it may be natural to want to hold onto all that money they worked for, some retirees (like Harry) can afford to loosen up a little. Here are four tips to make cracking into your nest egg less scary.
Trust your numbers. A future that can’t be predicted represents an intangible, but present numbers are irrefutable. Advisers say that fear and anxiety can lessen or disappear when retirees look closely at their incomes and portfolios and see how that will support a looser spending plan.
Stop monitoring every single expense. The Morningstar piece points to “loss aversion” being an issue for some retirees. The desire to avoid losses outweighs the desire to experience gains, thus spending also feels more personal when it taps money saved. Online tools that group expenses by general category will allow you to zoom out and not get so granular with every dime, especially when you weigh categories versus spending goals and budgeting, as opposed to emotions.
Give yourself gradual raises. For the frugal and fearful, old habits die hard. But a sure way to break free of deprivation is to increase yearly spending in a way that doesn’t force you to change all at once. J.P. Morgan Asset Management made news recently by revising its 4% retirement spending rule up to 5%, noting in a 2024 report that 4% is now too conservative and “not an efficient withdrawal plan for households that want to use their retirement wealth to support their retirement lifestyle.”
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Lou Carlozo is a freelance contributor to Moneywise.
