This is probably the second sharing from the online Bogleheads Conference. The first one was a pretty good safe withdrawal rate discussion.

Christine interviews financial planner Jonathan Guyton in this interview:

I have the option of just sharing the link to this YouTube video on my Telegram channel, but I thought Jonathan is so clear in his explanation that many readers planning their retirement would find this video valuable.

I have a special connection with Guyton. If his name might be familiar to you, you might have seen a paper that he has written in the past. When I went down this rabbit hole a decade ago to figure out what can my $500,000 buy me, I was very fascinated by the Guyton & Klinger Variable Withdrawal Strategy.

Jonathan shared in this interview that as a financial planner, he eventually grew uncomfortable when more and more clients ask him “You said that we can adjust our spending, but how do we adjust our spending? Would we turn out alright?”

You could possibly smoke one or two clients one time and two time, but deep down it is not very assuring to advise clients without any empirical research or not systemizing it.

The Guyton and Klinger rules are very rational rules to help a retiree adjust their spending up and down under a few conditions.

You will be more interested in this interview if you always wonder that if you can be flexible with your spending, can you retire with less capital?

A few tidbits that came out of the discussion:

1. On helping people that struggle to spend, you must help the person to acknowledge that “There is a leap involved”.
2. It is better to have a Vacation sinking fund instead of budgeting vacation into your recurring spending.
3. How to think about long term care spending in budgeting and retirement capital requirements.
4. “If you need to change your lifestyle, this is a sign your retirement plan has failed.”
5. A survey among current advisers shows that the toughest question they tackled nowadays is about keeping faith in investing in international stocks.
6. What are the conditions that make the most challenging flexible spending sequences challenging?

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