Redefining Retirement with Christine Benz (Ep. 1)

Retirement isn’t just about money; it’s about how you spend your time, maintain relationships, and create a meaningful life.

In this episode, Jamie Hopkins and Kate Duffy welcome Christine Benz, Morningstar’s Director of Personal Finance, to explore how retirement planning is shifting from purely financial to a more holistic approach.

Christine shares insights from her book How to Retire, highlighting why delaying retirement can be powerful, why relationships matter most, and how small lifestyle choices shape longevity.

Key takeaways:

00:00 – A Fresh Perspective on Retirement
04:19 – Delaying Retirement for Balance
11:06 – Relationships at the Core
15:58 – Staying Active for Longevity
16:25 – Rethinking Spending in Retirement
22:39 – Final Thoughts

Resources:

• The Long View Podcast – Morningstar
• Book: How to Retire: 20 lessons for a happy, successful, and wealthy retirement by Christine Benz
• Christine’s articles and videos – Morningstar

About Our Guest: 

Christine Benz is director of personal finance and retirement planning for Morningstar and senior columnist for Morningstar.com. In that role, she focuses on retirement and portfolio planning for individual investors. 

Benz is the author of How to Retire: 20 Lessons for a Happy, Successful, and Wealthy Retirement (Harriman House, September 2024). She also wrote 30-Minute Money Solutions: A Step-by-Step Guide to Managing Your Finances (Wiley, 2010) and Morningstar® Guide to Mutual Funds: 5-Star Strategies for Success, published in 2005. 

She also co-hosts a podcast for Morningstar, The Long View, which features in-depth interviews with thought leaders in investing and personal finance. She is a frequent public speaker and is widely quoted in the media, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, CNBC, and PBS. In 2020, Barron’s named her to its inaugural list of the 100 most influential women in finance; she appeared on the 2021 list as well. In 2021, Barron’s named her as one of the 10 most influential women in wealth management. 

Before assuming her current role in 2008, she served as Morningstar’s director of mutual fund analysis and was editor of Morningstar Mutual Funds and Morningstar FundInvestor.

Benz holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and Russian from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is president of the board for the John C. Bogle Center for Financial Literacy. Benz is also a member of The Alpha Group, a group of thought leaders from the wealth management industry from across the country. In her free time, she works with underprivileged women to improve their understanding of personal finance concepts.