Meet with PWL Capital: https://pages.pwlcapital.com/en-ca/contact-us?utm_source=content&utm_medium=youtube&utm_campaign=rationalreminder_yt Avoid Online Scams https://pwlcapital.com/stay-safe-online/ Ben Felix or any PWL employee will never reach out to you on social media platforms or WhatsApp to give financial advice. These are scammers trying to commit fraud. In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Paul Kaplan, economist, CFA charterholder, former Director of Research at Morningstar Canada, and co-author of Lifetime Financial Advice, for a fascinating exploration of life cycle finance. Drawing on decades of research in economics, portfolio construction, and asset allocation, Paul explains how financial planning should be grounded in optimizing lifetime consumption rather than relying on disconnected rules of thumb. We explore how life cycle finance integrates consumption, saving, investing, and retirement spending into a single framework, why risk tolerance and risk capacity are fundamentally different concepts, and how human capital should be treated as part of an investor's balance sheet. Paul also walks through the life cycle model he and Tom Idzorek developed, explains why traditional retirement rules like the 4% rule lack theoretical foundations, and demonstrates an open-source spreadsheet that allows anyone to experiment with the model for themselves. This conversation brings together economics, portfolio theory, and financial planning into a practical framework for making better lifetime financial decisions. Life Cycle Finance Spreadsheet https://rpc.cfainstitute.org/sites/default/files/docs/utility/ik-excel-lifecycle-model_v8_disclaimer-bundled.zip Lifetime Financial Advice: A Personalized Optimal Multilevel Approach https://rpc.cfainstitute.org/research/foundation/2024/lifetime-financial-advice-a-personalized-optimal-multilevel-approach Disclosure: Links to third-party materials are provided for your convenience and do not constitute an endorsement or recommendation of the products or services offered therein. Links From Today’s Episode: Rational Reminder on iTunes — https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-rational-reminder-podcast/id1426530582. Rational Reminder on Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/rationalreminder/ Rational Reminder on YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/channel/ Benjamin Felix — https://pwlcapital.com/our-team/ Benjamin on X — https://x.com/benjaminfelix Benjamin on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminwfelix/ Dr. Paul Kaplan: https://www.paulkaplan.com/ Lifetime Financial Advice (CFA Institute Research Foundation): https://rpc.cfainstitute.org/research/foundation/2025/lifetime-financial-advice Frontiers of Modern Asset Allocation (Wiley): https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Frontiers+of+Modern+Asset+Allocation-p-9781118029689 Popularity: A Bridge Between Classical and Behavioral Finance (CFA Institute Research Foundation): https://rpc.cfainstitute.org/research/foundation/2021/popularity-a-bridge-between-classical-and-behavioral-finance