06/04/2025
Why Do We Not Plan for Retirement?
Many of us consider ourselves good planners – prepared for most of what life might bring us. But few commit the time & energy necessary to benefit from planning for a most important stage of life. We may spend weeks planning for a 15-day trip to Europe, or we may spend days compiling an extensive list of everything our family will need to camp for a week at the lake. Some will even plan the next two week’s meals for their busy families (which can be helpful).
What most of us do not do is thoughtfully plan for a twenty-to-thirty-year retirement. As we approach our late 40’s to mid-50’s – we often find ourselves contemplating an eventual transition from full-time work to retirement, or of working part-time as a transition to a life free from work obligations. There are many elements of a lengthy retirement that are more impactful than any oversight we may encounter for events leading to this point. For example, forgetting to pack a bathing suit or sunscreen is relatively easy to remedy. Same goes for a package of hamburger buns or shampoo.
What is unique upon arriving at retirement is that the opportunity to remedy oversights is generally behind us. In other words, if you find your savings and investments to be lacking, the time to have remedied this is typically in the past. If you claim Social Security benefits early (before your Full Retirement Age), this may become a permanent hinderance to the success of your retirement spending. If you miss the enrollment period for Medicare Part B you could be assessed a lifetime penalty. It is immeasurably more difficult to address these and other issues after we have announced our retirement.
Working with a Retirement Planner can help to both highlight rough spots as well as point out success in your state of retirement readiness. The ability to perform “What-If” scenarios to test retirement ages, savings rates, future health issues (think Long Term Care), or the premature death of the primary earner can be most insightful. Planning also accounts for assessing whether your investments support your spending goals, and whether such investments are well-matched to your personal risk tolerance. Lastly, planning allows us to assess (today) how tomorrow’s activities / expenses may impact the decades ahead.
Creating a Financial Plan can help ensure we are on track to live the life we hope to enjoy in these special years, and to have confidence of this in advance. I have always liked this simple play on words:
“It wasn’t so much that I planned to fail – as much as I failed to plan.
