How to Retire: CliffsNotes Edition
Announcements:
- The Options SIG will meet on the 24th. See Chapter Information/SIGs for details on all SIG meetings.
- If you would like to bring a copy of her book, Christine would be happy to sign it.
- Following the meeting, please join us for lunch with the speaker at the Cape Fear Seafood Company (Village District).
Presentation Summary:
Planning for retirement isn’t just a matter of lining up financial resources–though that’s a crucial step. It’s also important to determine what will provide structure, purpose and identity, and relationships when you’re no longer working. Christine Benz will discuss key takeaways from her recent book How to Retire: 20 Lessons for a Happy, Successful, and Wealthy Retirement. She’ll assess the importance of guaranteed income in retirement, structuring an investment portfolio to support in-retirement cash flows, and thinking through how you’d pay for long-term care, among other topics.
In this presentation, you’ll learn:
- The value of guaranteed lifetime income sources, especially Social Security, and how to identify your own retirement income style
- How to build a portfolio for retirement that will provide stability and long-term growth
- How to develop a long-term care plan, regardless of your financial resources
Meeting Details:
Date: Saturday, May 17th, 2025
Time: 10:00 a.m. ET (mix and mingle starts at 9:30)
Location: Fairmont United Methodist Church: 2501 Clark Avenue Raleigh, NC 27607. See map of Fairmont for parking, building entrances, and the number of stairs entrances require.
Virtual access: To register to attend the Zoom webinar, please purchase a ticket on our chapter’s Square account
Cost: $10 cash (in-person) or electronic payment (webinar)
Before attending in person, please read: the AAII Protocol for In-Person Meetings
If you feel sick, please join us virtually.
About Our Speaker
Christine Benz is director of personal finance and retirement planning for Morningstar and senior columnist for Morningstar.com. In that role, she focuses on retirement and portfolio planning for individual investors.
Benz is author of How to Retire: 20 Lessons for a Happy, Successful, and Wealthy Retirement (Harriman House, September 2024). She also wrote 30-Minute Money Solutions: A Step-by-Step Guide to Managing Your Finances (Wiley, 2010) and Morningstar® Guide to Mutual Funds: 5-Star Strategies for Success, published in 2005.
She also co-hosts a podcast for Morningstar, The Long View, which features in-depth interviews with thought leaders in investing and personal finance. She is a frequent public speaker and is widely quoted in the media, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, CNBC, and PBS. In 2020, Barron’s named her to its inaugural list of the 100 most influential women in finance; she appeared on the 2021 list as well. In 2021, Barron’s named her as one of the 10 most influential women in wealth management.
Before assuming her current role in 2008, she served as Morningstar’s director of mutual fund analysis and was editor of Morningstar Mutual Funds and Morningstar FundInvestor. Benz holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and Russian from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is president of the board for the John C. Bogle Center for Financial Literacy. Benz is also a member of The Alpha Group, a group of thought leaders from the wealth management industry from across the country. In her free time, she works with underprivileged women to improve their understanding of personal finance concepts.