Ramit Sethi and Tommy discuss retirees who take required minimum distributions and immediately reinvest them because they don't know what to spend the money on. The real problem isn't the money itself, but that people spend decades saving without ever figuring out what they actually want to buy.
I know what retired men do, like optimizers like you, Tommy. I know it because I talk to them and they take their rmd, they're required to take it out and then they literally put it right back in. They invest it again. I go, what the fuck are you doing? And they go, whoa, I don't even know what to spend it on.
And.
And this is where it goes from funny to haunting. They go, what would I spend it on anyway? And I go, let me get this straight. I don't say this to him because I'm not trying to psychologically devastate a 72 year old man, but I go, let me get this straight.
Worked your ass off.
For basically 45.
Plus years.
To accumulate a bunch of money, provided for your family. You did all that, but along the way you forgot.
What you actually wanted to spend it on. Or maybe you never even built the muscle of.
Knowing how to spend.
It meaningfully.
What's the point of all that money?
