With the disappearance of private pensions, more of us are on the hook to pay for more of our retirements than in years past. Trust funds of Social Security and Medicare are heading toward insolvency at a time of increased longevity for people qualifying for their benefits. Some of us have, or will have, caregiving responsibilities in retirement, too, which can drain finances and energy.
Read: 6 Big Retirement Trends to Watch In 2025
Regrets about not saving early and regularly
Catherine Collinson, the chief executive and president of the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies who oversaw the survey, says there’s some justification for the retirees’ regrets about not saving more or starting early enough.
America’s retirees are “financially vulnerable,” Collinson said. The estimated median household savings among retirees in Transamerica’s survey is just $71,000.
“Knowing the high cost of long-term care services and supports, $71,000 isn’t going to go very far,” Collinson said.
Jack Abraham, retirement benefits services practice leader at PwC, isn’t surprised so many retirees wish they’d begun saving for retirement earlier.
“No matter how soon you start saving for retirement, you can always say, ‘I didn’t start soon enough,’” he said.
When boomers and Generation X started saving for retirement
Transamerica has found the median age that employed baby boomers (now age 60 to 78) started saving for retirement was 35. For Gen Xers (now age 45 to 59), it was a little earlier: age 30.
Since 401(k)s started becoming widely available in the early 1980s, Transamerica’s numbers suggest that many of today’s retirees weren’t early adopters of the employer-based retirement plans.
However, although most retirees regret not being more knowledgeable about retirement saving and investing, it’s worth recalling that the internet’s proliferation of personal-finance information didn’t start until today’s retirees were in their late 30s and early 40s.
But “they could have been reading Money magazine back in the 1980s,” Collinson said. (Full, and beaming, disclosure: I was a Money writer and editor back then.)
Debt as an obstacle to retirement saving
Abraham understands why so many retirees told Transamerica that debt kept them from saving for retirement.
“If I have a credit-card bill, it’s a lot easier to say ‘I won’t make the 401(k) contribution. I’ll pay off the credit card and everything will be fine later because I’ll catch up,’” he said. Of course, Abraham noted, the catch-up plan doesn’t always become reality.
Retirees’ regret about not getting more retirement information and advice from their employers made me wonder about the availability and take-up rates of such workplace offerings.
Workplace retirement programs often ignored
A survey from the SHRM human resource management trade group found that 49% of employers offer retirement planning or investment advice online, to a group or one-on-one.
“Financial wellness is a vital tool for employers making benefits decisions that influence talent attraction and retention, Abraham said.
But it turns out that employees often don’t know about their employers’ retirement-planning programs or don’t sign up for them.
In Payroll Integrations’ 2024 Employee Financial Wellness Report surveying 153 employees and 102 employers, 53% of employers said they offered financial education and planning but just 27% of employees knew it.
Half the surveyed members of the Plan Sponsor Council of America (a trade group of employers with retirement plans) who provide employees with investment advice said fewer than one in 10 of their workers used the advice.
“This is a confounding problem,” said Surya Kolluri, head of the TIAA Institute, a retirement think tank from the TIAA financial services group. “The paradox is: Those who need the advice don’t take it and those who don’t need it [because they are wealthy], take it.”
Some workers don’t sign up for retirement counseling from employers because they must pay a fee for it, the Plan Sponsor Council of America found. “I think a fee is a huge stumbling block,” said Abraham.
A New Year’s resolution for regretful retirees
Collinson recommended retirees with financial regrets make one New Year’s resolution to address them: Create a written retirement plan.
“Only 19% of retirees have one,” she said. “But just because you’re already retired doesn’t let you off the hook for retirement planning.”
A written plan can let you compare your retirement spending with your income, assess your debt and determine whether your investment allocation is divided among stocks, bonds and cash the way you want it to be.
“It’s impossible to know where you stand unless you spreadsheet the numbers or work with a financial adviser to map them out, especially to help alleviate the risk of running out of savings,” Collinson said. “It’s surgical.”