Apparently how you spend your money in retirement has a lot to do with your life satisfaction – this is off course assuming you have any money in retirement to spend. Long story made short spending it on time consuming leisure activities where health allows generates the most satisfaction. Overall satisfaction is also increased by having a partner, robust health and friends. Intriguingly other types of spending and children did not raise retirees level of satisfaction.
The full article can be downloaded from here and the abstract is copied below.
Abstract
Prior economic research has focused on the relation between money and well-being, rather than how resources are used to elicit life satisfaction in retirement. Using Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) along with data from the Health Retirement Study (HRS), this research explores how spending and relationship quality contribute to life satisfaction in retirement, controlling for financial and human capital factors. The results provide evidence to suggest that leisure spending, health status, and spousal and friend relationships have the greatest impact on creating life satisfaction during retirement, while other type of spending and children relationships do not.
Submission for paper presentation for the 2018 Academic Research Colloquium for Financial Planning & Related Disciplines – Michael Finke , Nhat Ho, K Portales,
