Life-cycle finance is also known as life-cycle investing. Life-cycle finance is a branch of finance that deals with consumption smoothing which basically involves spreading financial capital (accumulated assets) and human capital (the earnings during one's working years) over an entire lifetime--including retirement. Life-cycle finance deals with the challenge of combining elements of saving, diversification, hedging and insuring so that there is an optimal level of consumption and standard of living throughout one's entire lifetime.