Go-go, slow-go, no-go: why retirement spending isn’t flat
Retirement spending isn’t a flat line that rises only with inflation. Research shows it follows a smile: high in the active “go-go” years, falling through the “slow-go” years, and ticking up in the “no-go” years as healthcare costs rise. Plan for a flat 30 years and you’ll likely over-save — and under-live the years you’re healthiest.
1. The flat-line assumption that isn’t true
Almost every retirement projection starts with a quiet assumption: that you’ll spend the same amount, adjusted for inflation, every year for 30 years. It’s a flat line marching upward with prices. It’s also, according to a large body of research, wrong — and planning around it can quietly cost you the best years of your retirement. Real spending isn’t flat. It moves through three distinct phases that retirees and researchers call the go-go, slow-go, and no-go years.
The shape those phases trace has a name: the retirement spending smile. Spending starts high in the active early years, declines through the middle years as people naturally slow down, and ticks back up at the very end as healthcare costs grow — a shallow U, or smile, when you plot it. The pattern shows up across income levels and lifestyles, and it has a direct, practical consequence for how much you need and when you can afford to enjoy it.
This dispatch walks through the three phases, the smile they form, why assuming flat spending leads people to over-save, and how to plan your money to the actual shape of your life rather than a straight line that fits neither end.
The usual retirement fear is running out of money because costs spiral upward forever. The research points the other way for most retirees: because real spending tends to fall as you age, the bigger risk for many is over-saving — arriving at the slow-go and no-go years with more money than you can comfortably use, having denied yourself in the go-go years when you had the health and energy to enjoy it. David Blanchett, whose Morningstar research popularized the spending smile, made exactly this point: since spending generally declines through retirement, many people could responsibly spend more in the early years than a flat model allows. That doesn’t mean spend recklessly — the smile turns back up for healthcare — but it does mean the straight-line assumption systematically misjudges the shape of a real retirement.
2. The three phases of a retirement
The phases aren’t rigid ages — health and circumstances vary — but the arc is remarkably consistent.
The go-go years (roughly 60s to early 70s). This is active retirement at full throttle. Health and energy are at their post-career peak, and discretionary spending is highest: travel, hobbies, home projects, eating out, helping children and grandchildren. For federal retirees, this is often when the FERS annuity, the supplement, and early TSP draws fund the trips and projects deferred during working years. Spending here is at or near its lifetime peak.
The slow-go years (roughly mid-70s to early 80s). The pace naturally eases. Travel becomes less frequent, big purchases rarer, daily life more settled. Without any deliberate belt-tightening, total spending drifts down — Blanchett’s data shows real spending falling fastest in this middle stretch, around 2% a year. People simply do less, and doing less costs less.
The no-go years (roughly mid-80s onward). Activity drops further and discretionary spending becomes minimal — little travel, few large purchases. But this is where healthcare, prescriptions, and potential long-term-care or support costs rise and become a larger share of the budget. That late rise is what turns the declining line back upward and gives the smile its shape.
| Phase | Rough ages | Spending character |
|---|---|---|
| Go-go | 62–72 | Peak discretionary travel, hobbies, projects |
| Slow-go | 73–82 | Declining less travel, quieter routine |
| No-go | 83+ | Low discretionary, rising medical |
3. The smile, and why flat models over-save
Put the three phases on a graph of real spending and you get the smile: a high left side (go-go), a dip in the middle (slow-go), and a modest rise on the right (no-go healthcare).
Decade 1 (go-go): about −1%/year
Decade 2 (slow-go): about −2%/year
Decade 3 (no-go): about −1%/year, then a healthcare uptick
Here’s why the flat assumption matters in dollars. If you plan for constant inflation-adjusted spending across 30 years, you’re budgeting the go-go peak for all 30 — including the slow-go and no-go years when real spending naturally falls 15–25% below that peak. The result is a savings target that’s too high, and an early-retirement budget that’s too tight. You save more than you need and spend less than you safely could, precisely in the years you’re healthiest enough to enjoy it.
A flat-spending plan budgets your go-go peak for all thirty years — then asks you to live below it while you’re healthy, to fund a slow-go and no-go reality that costs less. The straight line fits neither end of your life.
None of this means the late years are free. The smile’s upturn is real, and healthcare and long-term-care costs can be large and lumpy. The lesson isn’t “spend everything early” — it’s “match your money to the curve.”
4. See your spending curve — and plan by phase
The estimator below draws your spending smile from a starting go-go budget and compares its lifetime total to a flat plan.
Retirement Spending-Smile Projector
Applies Blanchett’s real-spending pattern (−1% / −2% / −1% per decade, with a late healthcare uptick) to your starting budget. All figures are in today’s dollars. Illustration of a research average — your path will differ. Not advice.
Real (today’s-dollar) spending. The blue curve is the smile pattern; the dashed line is a flat plan at your go-go budget. The gap is what a flat assumption tends to over-budget across the full retirement.
Planning to the curve instead of the line comes down to a few moves:
Front-load the go-go years — on purpose. Budget your highest spending for the active early years, when health lets you use it. A modestly higher early withdrawal rate is often sustainable precisely because the later years cost less. (See the drawdown picture for how this fits a safe spending rate.)
Reserve for the no-go upturn separately. Treat late-life healthcare and potential long-term care as their own bucket — an HSA balance, a dedicated medical reserve, or long-term-care planning — rather than assuming flat spending will quietly cover it.
Re-run the plan each phase. Your spending will tell you which phase you’re in. Revisit the projection every few years and let actual spending, not a 30-year-old assumption, guide the withdrawals.
Don’t confuse the smile with a guarantee. The pattern is an average across many households; your health, longevity, and choices will move your own curve. Use it to challenge the flat assumption, not to replace it with a different rigid one.
The single biggest risk in over-applying the spending smile is treating the no-go years as uniformly cheap. For most retirees, late-life spending really is lower — but it’s also where the tail risk lives. A multi-year stay in memory care or a nursing facility can cost six figures a year and runs well outside the gentle averages the smile describes. The smile reflects what typical households spend; it does not promise that your no-go years won’t include a large, sustained medical cost. That’s why the right response to “spending declines with age” is to spend a bit more freely in the go-go years and protect the downside of the no-go years — not to assume the end of retirement is inexpensive and leave the long-term-care question unanswered. Plan the average, but insure or reserve against the tail.
The go-go / slow-go / no-go framing is credited to advisor Michael Stein, and the “retirement spending smile” to David Blanchett’s Morningstar research on the true cost of retirement. The decline rates cited here are population averages drawn from spending data and are illustrative, not predictions for any individual. Spending patterns vary with health, wealth, family circumstances, and personal choices, and the late-life healthcare uptick in particular can range from modest to severe. Treat the smile as a corrective to the flat-spending default, and model your own situation with a planner.
Frequently asked questions
What are the go-go, slow-go, and no-go years?
They’re a simple way to describe how retirement naturally divides into three spending phases, a framework credited to advisor Michael Stein. The go-go years are the active early retirement years, roughly your 60s into early 70s, when health and energy are highest and discretionary spending peaks: travel, hobbies, home projects, eating out, helping children and grandchildren. The slow-go years, roughly the mid-70s into the early 80s, are when people naturally slow down — less travel, fewer big purchases, a quieter and more predictable routine — and total spending tends to drift downward even after adjusting for inflation. The no-go years, typically the mid-80s and beyond, are when activity drops further and discretionary spending is minimal, but healthcare and support costs often rise and become a larger share of the budget. The phases aren’t rigid ages and they vary by person and health, but the broad pattern — active and expensive, then quieter and cheaper, then home-bound with rising medical costs — shows up consistently across research.
Does retirement spending really decline as you age?
Yes, and the research is fairly consistent on it. Morningstar’s David Blanchett, in his study “Estimating the True Cost of Retirement,” found that real (inflation-adjusted) retiree spending tends to decline through most of retirement — by roughly 1% per year in the first decade, around 2% per year in the second decade, and about 1% per year again in the final decade — before a late uptick driven by healthcare. Plotted on a graph, that path looks like a shallow smile: higher at the start, dipping through the middle, ticking back up near the end. Importantly, because inflation itself usually runs above 2% a year, retirees are often still spending roughly the same or slightly more in nominal dollars each year, even as their real spending falls. And even with the late healthcare uptick, total real spending in the final years typically remains well below where it started. The practical upshot is that the common assumption of flat, inflation-adjusted spending for 30 years overstates lifetime spending for most retirees.
Should I just plan for flat spending to be safe?
It feels safe, but it has a real cost: planning for flat, inflation-adjusted spending across a 30-year retirement causes many people to over-save and under-spend in the years they’re healthiest. Blanchett’s central point was the opposite of the usual fear — because spending tends to decline as retirees age, many could responsibly spend more in the early go-go years than a flat model suggests. That said, “spend more early” is not the same as “ignore the end.” The smile turns up for a reason: healthcare and potential long-term-care costs in the no-go years are real and can be large and lumpy, so a sensible plan front-loads enjoyment in the go-go years while still reserving for late-life medical needs — through an HSA balance, a dedicated medical reserve, or long-term-care planning. The goal is to match your money to the shape of your actual life: more in the active years, a reserve for the medical years, rather than a single flat line that fits neither end well.