The traditional bucket strategy can be improved by splitting essential expenses. The most conservative essentials—basic living, utilities, core healthcare—can be fully funded upfront in a safe bucket for the entire retirement, creating a lifelong spending floor and eliminating sequence risk. The remaining "flexible essentials" can be bucketed over a shorter horizon (5–10 years).

Discretionary expenses need not be bucketed at all; they can remain fully market-linked and flex up or down with portfolio performance.

This layered approach cleanly separates survival, lifestyle stability, and upside, making retirement portfolios more resilient and easier to manage under stress.