How To Practice for Retirement (Ep. 4)

Retirement isn’t just about reaching a number or a specific age. It’s a significant life transition that requires preparation beyond financial planning.

How do you shift from a lifetime of saving to spending? How do you build new communities and find purpose when work becomes optional?

In this episode, Jamie Hopkins and Kate Duffy explore the concept of “practicing retirement” and how to prepare for this major life transition at every stage of life. They discuss the psychological challenges of spending down savings, the importance of aligning your values with your spending, and practical strategies like bucketing, visualization, and test-driving retirement lifestyle choices. 

Key takeaways:

• The psychological and behavioral challenges of transitioning from saving to spending in retirement
• The importance of retirement planning beyond finances, including identity shifts, community building, and lifestyle changes
• How to use bucketing and visualization techniques throughout your life to align spending with your values and goals
• Practical strategies for test-driving retirement
• The counterintuitive benefit of stopping retirement savings 2-3 years before retiring to improve quality of life and potentially stay in the workforce longer

Chapters:

00:00 – Introduction
00:34 – What Does It Mean to “Practice” Retirement?
02:49 – The Shift from Saving to Spending
06:37 – Planning Beyond Finances: Identity and Community
09:49 – How Lifestyle and Goals Evolve Through the Decades
16:23 – Visualizing and “Living” Retirement Now
19:54 – Testing the Waters Before You Dive In
23:44 – Five Years from Retirement: Practicing for Real
27:15 – Why You Might Stop Saving Before Retirement
29:10 – Final Thoughts and Key Takeaways
30:19 – Closing Remarks and Next Steps