Episode summary
The Long View: Emily Guy Birken: What to Do in the Five Years Before You Retire
The Long View
· · 48 min · Hosts: Ben Johnson, Christine Benz, Amy Arnott · Guests: Emily Guy Birken
Summary
Emily Guy Birken argues that the five years before retirement are the right window to get practical about “enough,” because there is still time to change course without feeling like retirement is a distant abstraction. She recommends a two-sided exercise: imagine the ideal retirement in detail, then imagine the smallest retirement you could still feel content with, and use that range to test whether your savings and spending plans line up.
She says the biggest levers for near-retirees who are short are simple but consequential: spend less, work longer, delay Social Security if possible, and consider lower-cost living arrangements or other income sources. Birken is strongly pro-delay on Social Security for anyone who can afford it, calling the program about as close to a guarantee as you can get, while warning younger workers not to make it the center of their retirement plan.
The episode also covers budget planning in retirement, especially the hidden drag from leisure spending and the big one-off costs that are really irregular expenses, like roof replacement or a new car. Birken says long-term-care insurance has become too expensive for most people and is only useful for a narrow middle band of savers, while pre-Medicare health coverage should be treated as essential, not optional.
Key takeaways
- Birken says the five-year retirement window is ideal because it is close enough to feel real but still long enough to make meaningful changes.
- She recommends defining both an ideal retirement and a bare-bones content retirement to judge whether your savings are enough.
- If retirement looks underfunded, Birken says the main levers are spending less, working longer, delaying Social Security, or relocating to a lower-cost area.
- Birken says Social Security should not be the third leg of the stool for people in their 40s and 50s; it should be treated as gravy, not the core plan.
- She argues long-term-care insurance is usually not worth it today except for a narrow band of households with roughly $400,000 to $2 million in assets.
- Birken says retirees should plan for irregular expenses such as roofs, cars, and water heaters because fixed incomes make those hits much harder.
Notable quotes
“five years is an amount of time that feels real like it's when you get within five years of retirement that the finish line's on the horizon”
“start by dreaming big and then dream small”
“the only way to win is to die young. Is that really the gamble you want to take”
“social security is about as close to a guarantee as anyone can count on”
“a lot of the things we think of as like emergency expenses are often not actually emergencies”
How the episode opens
Please stay tuned for important disclosure information at the conclusion of this episode. Hi and welcome to the long view. I'm Christine Benz, director of personal finance and retirement planning for Morning Star.
And I'm Amy Arnut, portfolio strategist for Morning Star. Our guest on the podcast today is Emily Guy Berkin. Emily is the author of the 5 years before you retire.
She also co-authored Stacked, Your Super Serious Guide to Modern Money Management with Joe Saul Seigh. Other books include End Financial Stress Now, Making Social Security Work for You, and Choose Your Retirement: Find the Right Path to Your New Adventure. Emily received her master's degree in education from the Ohio State University and her undergraduate degree in English from Kenyan College.
Emily, welcome to the Long View. Thank you for having me.
Well, thank you so much for being here. We've wanted to talk to you for a while. I know your book, The Five Years Before You Retire, has been such a success. It seems to really tap into people's desire to figure out this time in their lives. Wondering if you can talk about what got you interested in retirement planning in the first place.
It's funny, it's not something I ever thought of as my career path. I like to tell people that I tripped and fell backwards into writing about money. I'm an English teacher by training. — I ended up writing about money because I'm very bad at timing. Uh my husband and I moved after my fourth year of teaching high school English when we were expecting our first child who was due at the beginning of the next school year. and we moved far enough away, we changed states and so I wasn't going to be able to find a teaching job because I would have had to go immediately onto maternity leave.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- retirement planning
- retirement savings catch-up
- social security timing
- long-term-care insurance
- health insurance before medicare
Watch the episode
Watch “The Long View: Emily Guy Birken: What to Do in the Five Years Before You Retire” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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The Long View, this episode and its artwork belong to Morningstar, Christine Benz - Director of Personal Finance and Retirement Planning, Ben Johnson - Head of Client Solutions, Amy Arnott - Portfolio Strategist. Octagon is not affiliated with the show; this page is an independent summary.
