2000: FORO,  The Fear of Running Out of Money in Retirement

**Farnoosh Torabi** (0:00)
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**SPEAKER_2** (0:38)
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**Jean Chatzky** (1:04)
The degree to which it turns out to be really, really, really hard to spend all that money that you've spent decades stashing away is it's really profound. I also watched my mother for 20 years after my dad died not spend money. She spent her income, she spent my dad's pension, she spent Social Security, she would spend the interest that she was earning on her retirement accounts. She would not spend the principal, even though my three brothers and I routinely would say to her mom, we do not need your money. But she just couldn't do it. When she passed away, she had more than she had when my father died 20 years earlier. I just thought, God, that's sad.

**Farnoosh Torabi** (1:50)
Welcome to So Money, everyone. I'm Farnoosh Torabi. Well, we did it, episode 2000 Pat yourself on the back. If you've been with us since the beginning or if you just joined a week ago, I'm so glad you're here. We've got a great episode for you ahead. But first, just want to take a moment to thank you and express my gratitude. I can't believe it. I cannot believe we're here, 2000 I don't think I've done anything 2000 times, except maybe pack my kids' lunch for school. And this is a lot more fun. So here we go. Today, we're talking about 4.0, the fear of running out. We've heard of FOMO, but 4.0, what is this? According to a new sweeping study from Corebridge Financial, Americans are nine times more likely to say they'd regret running out of money while they're alive than dying with a fortune left unspent. Now, you have probably spent years, maybe decades, doing everything right, putting money away.
You're contributing to your 401k, maybe even maxing it. And you're watching the balance grow. And somewhere in the back of your mind, you're telling yourself, when I finally get there, I'm going to enjoy this. But here's what a new study just uncovered. And it's one of the most surprising findings in retirement research in years. That getting there, while that's hard, and that may be considered the hard part, spending the money once you do is actually harder for millions of Americans. These are people who've worked hard, they saved it diligently, they made it to retirement, and now they're not spending, they're hoarding, they're restricting, they're eating out less, they're skipping the trip, they're holding back, not because they can't afford it, but because they're afraid. They're afraid if they actually use what they saved, it might run out. So to unpack what's driving this and what to do about it, we have two people who are perfectly positioned to have this conversation. Brian Pinsky is president of Individual Markets at Corebridge Financial. They're one of the nation's largest providers of retirement solutions. He's also the executive behind this landmark research.
We have Jean Chatzky. She's a New York Times bestselling author, personal finance expert, one of the most trusted voices in America when it comes to helping real people make smart decisions with their money. She has partnered with Corebridge to turn these findings into an actionable playbook for retirement. We're going to walk through what the data shows, why it matters, and what you can do right now, even if retirement is still years away, to make sure you don't fall into this trap. Let's get into it.
Jean Chatzky and Brian Pinsky, welcome to So Money.

**Jean Chatzky** (4:24)
Thank you. So nice to be with you.

**Farnoosh Torabi** (4:27)
Yeah, this is a really interesting topic. We spend so much time on this show, in the financial planning world, helping Americans get to the point of having quote unquote enough for retirement. And the great irony being that even for those of us who have probably enough on paper, are terrified of spending it. And the two of you have done this really comprehensive survey looking at the feelings around spending in retirement. And maybe we could take a giant step back and just, I'd be curious to learn what prompted your curiosity. I'm sure you were sort of sensing this already anecdotally, and now you really want to put some data behind it. Were you surprised with what you found?