News
4 November 2026
Solving the retirement spending challenge
Building up your wealth for retirement is only half the job. The bigger challenge often comes in retirement, when we need to turn our savings into a reliable income stream – while balancing carefully using up our savings, keeping access to that money, or both.
Auckland-based financial adviser Edward Glennie of Genesis Advice says the Lifetime Retirement Income Fund (LRIF) can play a useful part in this planning process for some clients.
While Lifetime Retirement Income is not suitable for every retiree and should be considered alongside a client's wider financial circumstances and objectives, Glennie believes the structured approach it provides, by using retirement savings to create a regular fortnightly income spread out over time, can be beneficial.
This is particularly so for clients who either fear spending too much too soon and need the financial discipline it provides, or who become so focused on preserving capital that they unnecessarily restrict their lifestyle. In Glennie's view, the structured income approach can help some clients make spending decisions with greater confidence.
“It takes some of the guesswork out of it,” he says. “You're actually putting it in a structure that pays you out over time.”
Glennie says that as New Zealand's population ages, more retirees will need solutions that focus not just on growing wealth, but on confidently – and sustainably - spending it.
Overcoming reluctance to spend
Glennie first became familiar with Lifetime Retirement Income when Lifetime Asset Management took over AMP’s Superannuation Master Trust. Over time, he has found Lifetime Retirement Income’s proposition relevant for older retirees who have accumulated savings but may be reluctant to spend them.
While term deposits may suit investors seeking certainty with their retirement savings (capital), and many continue to rely heavily on them, Glennie says some struggle with the reality of the ever-changing interest rate environment and uncertainty about how much of their retirement savings they can safely spend without running out.
“(With term deposits) they know rates are going to rise and fall,” he says. “And then they’re still getting their principal back - but they don't necessarily need that principal.”
That reluctance to spend capital is a behavioural challenge facing many retirees. Often, they feel obliged to hold onto money for future generations, even when their children would prefer they use it to improve their own retirement, he says.
“My mum has always gone on about wanting to leave money for her children,” he says. “And all three siblings keep saying, ‘Mum, I'd rather you spend the money.'”
“My mum has always gone on about wanting to leave money for her children [...] and all three siblings keep saying, ‘Mum, I'd rather you spend the money.'”
—Edward Glennie (Financial Advisor of Genesis Advice)
For Glennie, Lifetime Retirement Income offers a structured way of addressing this hurdle.
“Part of the logic is that by its very structure, it would take care of the need for you to leave anything because you would have spent it,” he says. But in a sustainable way.
Glennie says this may appeal to retirees whose priority is maximising their own retirement lifestyle rather than preserving assets for inheritance.
The manager-of-managers underlying investment approach can be difficult to explain to people, Glennie says. (Lifetime hires specialised outside experts to manage the investment fund – known as a manager-of-managers approach). However, Glennie notes that in times of strong market performance, investment returns may contribute to some of the income needs. However, clearly investment returns are not guaranteed, and capital values can rise and fall over time.
He cites the example of a widow receiving income from her late husband's estate but unable to access the underlying assets producing the income, as they were left to his children. However, she had some savings of her own, which she could use with Lifetime to create a top-up income, without needing help from her own children.
“That was the perfect client for Lifetime,” Glennie says.
The advice here is general and does not constitute specific advice to any person.
Written by:
Sonia Speedy
Sonia Speedy has been a journalist for over 20 years, working in newspapers, magazines and radio. She also runs an online platform for parents at familytimes.co.nz. She lives on the Kāpiti Coast with her young family and loves writing stories that help make people's lives easier.