Meredith Moore is the Founder & CEO of Artisan Financial Strategies LLC. She is fascinated by the interplay between gender, money and power.
There was a time when I wasn’t buying green bananas.
Six weeks after having my son, I was diagnosed with a glioblastoma, a grade-four brain tumor. At the time, long-term survival was considered three years. Most people didn’t make it one. I underwent two craniotomies, including an awake procedure at a brain tumor center, along with radiation and chemotherapy. I was the only person still alive in my clinical trial.
I am now a 21-year survivor, which places me internationally among the longer-living survivors of this diagnosis.
During that early period, I hesitated to contribute to long-term retirement accounts. It didn’t make sense to lock money up for a future I wasn’t sure I would reach.
But sitting in the neuro ICU, I had a different realization. At 30 years old, I understood that even if I didn’t live a long life, I had already created enough wealth to leave a financial legacy for my son.
That experience made something very clear: Financial decisions are often driven less by strategy and more by how long we believe we have.
Most financial plans are still built on life expectancies that no longer apply.
Advances in early detection, treatment and ongoing care are reshaping survival outcomes. Data from the National Cancer Institute shows that overall cancer survival rates have improved significantly over the past several decades. At the same time, population trends from the U.S. Census Bureau indicate continued growth in the number of Americans living into their 80s and beyond. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, life expectancy remains well above historical norms, even after recent fluctuations.
This doesn’t mean people are simply living in decline longer. Many are continuing to work, stay active and engage in meaningful ways well into later decades of life. Chronic conditions that were once life-limiting are increasingly manageable over long periods of time. Medical technology has significantly helped improve longevity.
Yet our financial behavior hasn’t caught up. People still anchor their plans to outdated assumptions, often relying on how long their parents or grandparents lived without accounting for how much medical technology has changed. They plan for a “typical” life expectancy instead of stress-testing what happens if they live into their 90s or beyond.
In practice, this shows up in predictable ways.
High earners and business owners often underinvest in long-term growth because they’re implicitly planning on a shorter timeline. They hold excess cash, delay decisions and fail to coordinate across investments, taxes, estate planning and risk management. The result is not just inefficiency. It’s under-deployment of capital over what is likely a much longer life.
There’s a deeper issue in play here, too: scarcity thinking.
Many individuals focus almost exclusively on making sure they have enough for themselves but stop there. Far fewer step back and ask what it would look like to build something that extends further. That includes funding long-term care without burdening family, building wealth intentionally over decades and creating the capacity to give, transfer or invest with purpose.
At the same time, fear often drives behavior, particularly among women (in my observation). The concern about running out of money remains one of the most common themes I see. That fear often leads to overly conservative decisions, even when the data suggests a longer runway that could support more thoughtful risk-taking and long-term growth.
There’s also a structural flaw in how most people view retirement.
For many high performers, the idea of simply stopping work is neither realistic nor desirable. Identity, purpose and engagement don’t disappear at a predetermined age. Yet financial plans are still often built around a hard stop, rather than a phased approach to income, contribution and activity.
As longevity is increasing, work life is becoming less a single arc ending at retirement and more a series of chapters.
That shift has real financial implications. It changes how long assets need to last and how we should manage risk. It changes how and when income is generated. And it requires a more coordinated approach across all aspects of financial decision-making.
There was a time I wasn’t planning for the future at all. Today, I see the opposite problem more often. People are planning too cautiously for a future that is likely much longer than they think.
Longevity is no longer just a medical reality. It’s a financial one that needs to figure into your financial plans. You’re probably going to live longer than you expect to. How well do your financial decisions reflect that reality?
The information provided here is not investment, tax or financial advice. You should consult with a licensed professional for advice concerning your specific situation.
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