The Top Five Regrets of Older Retirees and How to Avoid Them

A viral video from My Retired Life recently highlighted the top five regrets of an admittedly tiny sample of retirees in their 70s and 80s.

In spite of the small sample and unscientific nature of the results, few of the octogenarian and nonagenarians I know would argue with the overall tone of the video. And yes I know a fair few. I’m a carer for my 90-year-old mother, and closely involved with her same-age friendship group.

Yet many of these regrets are avoidable, so let’s take a look at them, and what the workarounds might be.

Retiring Too Late

This is an interesting one for a couple of reasons. Older retirees wish they retired sooner. However:

• Many Americans don’t have the opportunity to retire young, and one in three think they’ll never retire fully.
• While it seems like a reasonable regret, there’s evidence to show that retiring can actually be detrimental to wellbeing and happiness.

This is one that really needs to be put in context. It makes sense that many older retirees who worked traditional jobs and retired at 65 have regrets. An earlier retirement would have allowed them to enjoy the leisure and travel opportunities retirement brings at a younger age. However, full retirement is no longer necessary — for many of us — in order to enjoy the freedom many associate with this life stage.

If your financial situation doesn’t allow for an early retirement it may be time to rethink (and re-define) what retirement means to you. Partially retiring while continuing to fulfil an enjoyable and purposeful role that still generates some kind of income can be the answer. Especially if that role can be carried out remotely. Retirees all over the world are doing this by:

• Consulting
• Coaching
• Writing
• Creating (sellable) art
• Taking on seasonal work
• Tutoring
• Running YouTube channels

Channels like Fifty Sister and Kate Gypsy are solid evidence that you don’t have to be in your 20s to take on the technology and make a go of these things later in life. Retirement can look different than it used to. And it probably should.

Not Spending More Money Early On

This sounds like a strange regret, but it’s another common one. Many retirees are over cautious financially at the beginning of their retirement because, of course, no-one want to blow through their retirement savings and be struggling later in life.

However, the first few years after retirement are often the years when you are healthiest and have the most energy and physical capabilities. This is probably, practically speaking, the best time to take that round-the-world trip, or climb that mountain.

This is why it’s vital you sit down with a specialist financial planner or other professional and ensure you have a really good handle on how you’re going to fund your retirement and what your budget will look like — not just at the point of retirement, but long-term as well.

You want to avoid penny-pinching in the early years of retirement when you should be enjoying what health and fitness you have left, while still feeling confident that you’ll have enough income as you age.

Not Prioritizing Health

An obvious one, of course, and closely linked to the issue of not retiring earlier. Too many of us leave retirement until our health is already in rapid decline.

Staying healthy into old age no easy task, and at least somewhat out of our control, but this one is worth considering when looking at your overall plans for retirement.

Planning to take all reasonable precautions to stay as healthy as possible, and having the right health insurance in place, are both important, but so is looking at the somewhat inevitable decline in health that happens as we age.

Retiring earlier (with some income generating role or roles in place) and enjoying the early years of your retirement are ways to make the most of your health while you still have it. Taking care of your health as well as you can is vital too.

Not Embracing a Hobby

It’s hard to imagine during the cut-and-thrust of our messy, stressy work lives that too much leisure could ever be a problem. But it is. Just a couple of the issues that kick in on retirement can be to boredom and conflict with your spouse if you have one, given that you may suddenly be spending more time together than you ever have before.

Planning to take up a hobby can be a great way to balance this, but again you need to be thinking in terms of health, fitness and finances. Don’t put off a hobby that requires you to be fit and healthy, and think carefully about delaying a hobby because it’s expensive. Again, it’s a case of finding a balance between making your retirement funds last, and enjoying them while you still can.

Not Traveling

I mentioned my 90-year-old mother at the beginning of this article. She loves to travel. And she has. Throughout her retirement. She still loves it, but it’s getting harder, and her ill health over this past summer led to the cancellation of a trip that would have been an easy option for her just ten years ago.

Travel isn’t cheap (although there are ways to make it cheaper) and it’s definitely something that needs to be budgeted for. But it might be worth looking at your overall budget for travel, and loading more of it into those early retirement years, when you have the health and fitness levels to do it, and perhaps the ability to rough it a little more than you will twenty years down the road.

You might also want to consider doing the digital nomad life while you still can, or finding a little ex-pat paradise where your retirement dollars will go a little further, for at least some of your retirement.

Retirement regrets are personal. Yours may be very different, but if you’re at the beginning of your planning journey, maybe factor some of these issues in.

Karen Banes is a freelance writer specializing in entrepreneurship, parenting and lifestyle. She writes articles, website content, ebooks and the occasional award winning short story. Her work has appeared in a range of publications both online and off, including The Washington Post, Life Info Magazine, Transitions Abroad, Brave New Traveler, Natural Parenting Group, and Copia Magazine. Learn More About Karen