The Globe and Mail Brenda Bouw Published April 9, 2021
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Investors are told throughout the course of their lives to spend less and save more if they want a comfortable retirement. For some, those frugal habits can be hard to break once they stop working – even if they’ve saved more than they could hope to spend for the rest of their lives.
Case in point: Recent research from U.S. asset-management giant T. Rowe Price shows many retirees are focused on asset preservation.
“Conventional retirement income planning assumes that retirees want to maintain a certain standard of living or a certain level of spending and attempt to generate enough income to support that spending level,” the report says. “But the data suggest that the opposite might be true. People are flexible about their spending and adjust it to match their income so that they can avoid drawing down their assets.”