The following is more what you should think about to determine whether you should spend one item ahead of the other during retirement. This would also apply generally to a surviving spouse dealing with their own assets and their marital deduction survivor's trust and the credit shelter trust that was created. The last question is easiest to answer. The surviving spouse should always spend their own money first and thereby reduce the size of their taxable estate. The credit shelter (family or decedent's) trust will always be tax free in full, together with all of its appreciation and undistributed income. Income distributions from a credit shelter trust to the surviving spouse should be made only if the surviving spouse needs the funds to live on or there is an income tax reason; otherwise, they should be distributed to the children if the trust provides. The first question is the hardest to answer because you have to consider your own personal needs. The first thing to consider is: How can I create a lower income taxes? For this, you usually use accounts that have already been taxed and try to turn nonmonetary only into cash after they have been held for one year and are long-term capital assets. Whether or not to withdraw funds from a 401K or an IRA is the next problem. Certainly the monies taken out will be income taxable in most cases and the reduction in your retirement account cannot continue to grow free of current taxation. Therefore, you have lost the continued tax-deferred growth. Leaving an IRA to loved ones can be very beneficial to your spouse or to your children beneficiaries. If your spouse will never need the pension funds to live on because of other assets in the family, the spouse should be skipped so that the funds can go directly to the children. This will allow them to maximize their retirement funds. A single person holding a large estate should consider the estate taxes that will be required and manage an estate so that those taxes could be taken care of easily and without drawing on pension plans or IRAs. Remember, also, that Roth IRAs are another beneficial asset and will never be income when withdrawn under most circumstances.