5 Regrets Of Retirees Over 70

A random, retired YouTuber did a simple video exploring the top 5 regrets from other retirees he interviewed (all in their 70s). It blew up to almost half a million views (and counting). Let’s see what regrets made the list and, more importantly, explore what proactive steps you can take to avoid having the same regrets when you retire.

 

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Transcript: 

 

Speaker 1:

A random retired YouTuber did a very simple video explaining the top five regrets from other retirees he interviewed all in their seventies. This week we're going to talk about those regrets here on Plan With The Tax Max and see how they line up with clients that come in to C & Tony. Let's talk about it. Here we go.

 

Hey everybody, thanks for tuning into the podcast. Thanks for hanging out with Tony Morrow and myself as we talk investing, finance, retirement here on Plan With The Tax Man. He has been doing this for many, many years and he's a qualified professional to help you with your retirement situation as a CPA, a CFP, and an EA of 30 plus years in the industry. Again, a great resource for you to reach out to.

 

And Tony, I thought I'd share this with our listeners and stuff out there. We'll put a link to the video for folks who want to check it out. It was a very simple video. Nice guy. Seemed very pleasant, just asking some other retirees. I think he was maybe around 65 or so. These folks were all over their seventies. It's got like a half million plus views of this video to talk about the things they regret now that they're further into retirement. And maybe so we can share some proactive steps because you do this day in and day out of ways to avoid having some of those similar regrets when our folks or our listeners retire. Okay?

 

Tony:

Sounds good.

 

Speaker 1:

And of course if you haven't checked it out, go check it out folks. Like I said, it's a pretty good video.

 

But number one, and I think this is probably fairly not surprising across the board there, they wish they had retired earlier. Thinking about that, if they're in their seventies, they probably got to where they're like, "Hey, this is pretty great. I wish we would've been able to do this a little bit sooner." And I know more and more people want to retire earlier, but it certainly is a math problem you're going to have to solve for if that's a regret you don't want to have.

 

Tony:

And I have watched the gentleman's video and I would encourage everybody to go watch it because it is informative. And almost all of these, I can relate back to my own father, but many clients as well. But really a lot of people, if you don't have this on your mind and you're not planning for it ... And it all comes back to what we always talk about is enlisting the help of your advisor to help you with this.

 

But if you wait too long, generally what people are saying is, I continue to want to work and I thought that I would just push it off and everything's going to be okay. Maybe not financially, and my own father worked too long. He worked till he was 80 years old. And that now all of a sudden stuff starts happening, whether you lose a spouse or your health deteriorates and then you feel like you can't enjoy it like you thought you were going to. And a lot of people have this regret because of that. And a lot of them, I think my father included, didn't really have a plan in place to say, okay, this is the end date I'm going to now start the next chapter of my life. And they wake up one day and they're into their retirement and they can't do what they wanted to do.

 

Speaker 1:

And all five of these, you literally can link them together and see how fixing a one or two things could possibly fix all of these or eliminate these regrets.

 

Tony:

Exactly.

 

Speaker 1:

Wishing you retired earlier, well, A knowing that you've got the funds to do so is going to probably be, I think, paramount there because you don't want to get into retirement too early and then obviously run out of money. That's the number one fear for most people.

 

Number two, Tony was they wish they had spent more when they did first retire. I think to me, this comes right back to that math problem of they got into retirement ... Or like many people do, they get to retirement. Maybe they fudge the math, a little back of the napkin math or whatever, and they're like, "Yeah, we can make this work, but we'll just play it a little close to the chest in retirement," and then they don't wind up maybe doing those things that were on their bucket list early on. Then they realize, hey, we are going to be fine. But now our bodies, to your point a minute ago, won't let us go do the things. I wish we'd have done that sooner. So again, this to me all comes down to having a spending plan and a strategy.

 

Tony:

Yes. And we do this with every single retiree that we work with, is come up with a spending plan. We come up with a list of their bucket list. Even if it doesn't ever get checked off, at least we have it in the background and we want them to spend some of their money, obviously, according to the plan and according to their lifestyle.

 

And the other thing I think that's important at least that we do, is we run a lot of analysis to make sure that they're comfortable knowing if we spend X, how long before our money runs out, if ever. And then that way they can feel good about spending money without having to worry about, I don't know when I'm going to run out of money and I don't want to, so therefore I'm going to keep it all. And like you said, then you get too far along and you can't enjoy it. But that is the most important thing in that whole area.

 

Speaker 1:

Oh, for sure. Well, and number three is they wish they had taken better care of their health. Again, see, these all play together obviously, right?

 

Tony:

Yes.

 

Speaker 1:

Because if you took a little bit better care of your health and you planned properly, you might've been able to retire earlier, possibly, and then of course spent more and done more of those go-go phase things.

 

Tony:

As I age, and I watched my father age, he's now 83, you see, especially, at least I do with him, he just can't do things that he used to do. And he's in fairly good health, but he's got the normal issues. But boy, if you've got a lot of health problems and some of them you can't control, I realize, but some you can, and I'm not saying you just have to constantly be just eating salads every day or something, but you do have to try to watch it. And as you get older, I don't know, at least with me, more cognizant of what my blood pressure is, what my weight is, and things like that.

 

Speaker 1:

Mobility. Mobility is a big one, Tony, keeping those knees and stuff moving and those hips because again, think about the downtime that happens to so many seniors when they have a hip replacement or a knee replacement, especially if they've been kind of sedentary in their life. It makes it even tougher.

 

Tony:

And we all think we're going to retire in perfect health and we're going to be able to go out and do things well into our eighties and for many, many, that doesn't happen. So it goes back to some what we just talked about, trying to stay healthy so you can retire earlier so you can enjoy.

 

Speaker 1:

Unfortunately, our laws and a lot of things that we have in place don't make it any easier. So we even have to make the even harder choices because it is easy to get such crap food and do things to put in our body that's not great.

 

We were just having this conversation and made a joke last night and had family in for my mother's birthday as well Tony, she's the same age as your dad, and she asked if the dogs could have peanut butter. And it's like, well, sure, everybody knows that dogs love peanut butter, but there's a chemical in peanut butter. I think it's Zytitol or something like that. I'm probably saying it wrong. It's not great for them, so you should not give them too, too much peanut butter or go with natural peanut butter, like all natural peanut butter. And I made this joke and I thought, this chemical that's in peanut butter, it's not good for dogs. It's not safe for dog consumption, but apparently it is for humans because they allow it to be in peanut butter for us to eat.

 

We have these crazy, crazy chemicals that we put into a lot of our food, which does not help our health situations either. So smart eating, to your point, not necessarily a salad every day, but smart diet, mobility, things of that nature go a long way in order to helping you feel better in retirement so that you can go back to doing more of those things that you want to do.

 

And maybe that flies into this one here, number four, which is many of those folks on there, they said they wish they had taken up a hobby. And I think maybe these are the workaholic type people out there, Tony, that are so wrapped up in their work that said, that's who I am. So many of us do that. My job is my thing. It's my entity, so to speak. And when you retire, if you don't have that hobby or if you hadn't fostered one along the way, you have that, what do I do now mentality?

 

Tony:

Yeah. This happened to my own father because his only hobby really was golf. And he's played golf, but now at 83, he wants to play, but he's had some heart issues and some other things he can't play anymore. But he now really regrets that he didn't have other things he was doing.

 

Speaker 1:

Sure.

 

Tony:

And it doesn't have to be necessarily sports. It could be anything. It could be reading. It could be [inaudible 00:08:51].

 

Speaker 1:

Stamp collecting. Whatever.

 

Tony:

Anything, just something that you have a passion for that you want to do is, I think it's important too to have something to keep your mind sharp rather than just going out and doing, say a golf type thing because studies have shown that your mind starts to go a little bit when you don't exercise it. And I think with a lot of retirees, they tend to be by themselves some if they've lost a spouse and their mind starts to slip a little bit because they aren't, other than watching TV, really challenging it a little bit. So I think it's important for people to have some kind of hobby. It could be anything. Especially with today, you could do everything online if it just occupies some of your time and it's helpful to you.

 

Speaker 1:

I agree. Absolutely. And having that hobby or whatever that case is certainly again, helps with the mobility, helps with the mental, just like you pointed out.

 

And again, all of these work together because the fifth one, Tony, was they wish they had traveled more. Well, again, look at all five of these and put them together and you can certainly see where these regrets all line up. If you had a strategy, if you had a plan, if you had taken a little bit better care of yourself, maybe you would be able to do all the things on this list and not have the regrets. Now life is always full of regrets. You're going to probably have some, but at least you could check some of these off. And of course, travel is one that many people have. But to your point earlier, maybe they don't feel like that number two, they didn't spend as much, so they're holding onto it. They're keeping the money tight to the chest. They get a little older and now their health won't let them maybe go take that travel trip around the world or over to Italy or whatever.

 

Tony:

And I just returned from Hawaii about a week and a half ago, and I was just mentioning to my wife some of the elderly people that are still trying to travel, and they come in the plane on those little plane type of wheelchairs and whatnot. But they don't make travel easy for the elderly. If you can't walk fast and get down those ramps and-

 

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah. Especially if you've got a layover.

 

Tony:

Then it's a whole other topic.

 

Speaker 1:

Especially if you're stuck on a layover.

 

Tony:

Then you got a layover in some giant airport. Let alone when you get somewhere having to walk. So that's the physical stuff. I think a lot of people, like you said, they don't plan some of this other stuff, and then they always wanted to travel and they get too far along. My dad right now is afraid to travel because he doesn't want to get sick and get laid over and have something happen in even another state's hospital, let alone in our country.

 

Speaker 1:

Oh, sure.

 

Tony:

And he just is very fearful of that. And I think physically he could do it, but he's afraid.

 

Speaker 1:

And hey, the mental aspect goes a long way to keeping you, I guess, stuck. You can't get out of that cycle. You can't get your own brain out of the way.

 

Tony:

I've told my brothers with him, I don't see him ever traveling again unless it was some kind of miracle because he just gets too afraid. And that's, I think, more mental with him. But I know he regrets because he worked too long that he wish they would've traveled more.

 

Speaker 1:

Oh, yeah. I can't get my mom on a plane either, so I'm with you there. If she wants to see my sister, my sister has to come to her or I have to drive her there. And that's like a 14-hour drive, so it's not easy to do.

 

So if you don't want to have these regrets again, you got to have a strategy in place and it's not just for the X's and O's, the money. Obviously that's super important. But Tony, what you guys do is you help people go through and strategize and plan and stress test, and think about the different scenarios that come up in retirement because it's our only retirement when we come in to see someone like yourself. But you've helped hundreds or thousands of families, so you guys have great insights on that.

 

Tony:

And we've seen a lot of different things, so we could certainly share a lot of different things that we've seen both good and bad.

 

Speaker 1:

Sure.

 

Tony:

And try to help people.

 

Speaker 1:

And a strategy and a plan, that's where it all starts so that you know what you got, why you've got it, and how you're going to be able to use it when you get to retirement. And maybe part of that plan is also getting yourself healthy, sitting down with a financial professional, especially once you get to 50 or a little higher, it's a great time. I think we start all focusing a little harder on, hey, my golden years are coming. Many people I know my age fifty-plus are starting to get in better shape and so on and so forth because they don't want to be in the same situation that their parents are in.

 

So if you need some help, sit down and talk with a qualified like Tony and his team at Tax Doctor, Inc, they are here to help. So you can plan with the Tax Man. Find him online at yourplanningpros.com. That's yourplanningpros.com for a complimentary review and strategy session of your own. Tony, thanks for hanging out and I appreciate you my friend, as always.

 

Tony:

All right, we'll see you next month. Thanks.

 

Speaker 1:

We'll see you next time here on Plan With The Tax Man. Go check out the video as well and make sure that you got a plan in place so that you don't have any of those regrets when you get into your seventies as well. And we'll see you next time here on Plan With The Tax Man.

 

Securities offered through Avantax Investment Services SM, member FINRA, SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through Avantax Advisory Services. Insurance services offered through an Avantax affiliated insurance agency. Investment strategies discussed in this episode may not be suitable for all investors. Please consult with a financial professional.