8 Retirement Truths Most People Don’t Know

Retirement planning research and data can be genuinely eye-opening — I read a lot of it every year, and I always find things worth sharing. Here are eight truths from recent research I think every retiree (or soon-to-be retiree) should know.

You’ll probably live longer than you think. Most people plan around their own life expectancy, but for a married couple, what matters is how long the second spouse lives — and that number is meaningfully higher than most people expect. If you’ve lived a healthier-than-average life, plan on healthier-than-average longevity too.

Retirement spending happens in three phases. The “go-go, slow-go, no-go” years describe how spending tends to decline as we age and travel less — but early retirement spending is often higher than people expect, and that’s usually fine to plan for.

Retirement spending isn’t a straight line. Most retirees see their spending swing more than 20% year to year, even years into retirement — which is exactly why an ongoing emergency reserve matters just as much in retirement as it did before.

Social Security timing is a bigger decision than people treat it as. For a high earner, waiting from age 62 to age 70 can mean a difference of more than $24,000 a year, for life. That doesn’t mean waiting is right for everyone — but it deserves real math, not a gut decision.

Long-term care is more likely than you’d guess. An estimated 70% of people turning 65 will need some form of long-term care, and for many, it lasts years, not months. This deserves a real plan, not a hope that it won’t happen.

More stock exposure, even in retirement, often reduces the risk of running out of money over a multi-decade retirement — which runs counter to a lot of conventional wisdom about “playing it safe” as you age.

More guaranteed income tends to unlock more spending, because it gives retirees permission to actually enjoy what they’ve saved instead of white-knuckling it.

And the truth I care most about: don’t retire from something — retire to something. The research on retirement satisfaction points to four things: having a reason to get up each morning, staying active and helping others, spending time with people you love, and taking care of your health. Money is the tool. Purpose is the point.

That last one is really the heart of everything I wrote about in Your Retirement, God’s Kingdom — that a well-funded retirement and a well-lived retirement aren’t the same thing, and the second one takes just as much intentional planning as the first.

If any of these eight raise a question about your own plan, let’s talk.