What About Financial Wellness in Retirement?

Retirees are cool with kicking back.

Retirees are cool with kicking back.

A whopping eight out of ten retirees find life in retirement better than they had originally anticipated.

That’s according to a new Spectrem Group study that examines the attitudes, behaviors and concerns of those recently retired (which it defines as those who’ve been out of the workforce less than a decade) and those retired for 20 years or more, which reveals overwhelming satisfaction with their life in retirement.

At the same time, however, Financial Wellness in Retirement finds that nearly half of retirees failed to begin planning until just five years before they left the workforce, with nearly a quarter acknowledging that it wasn’t until the year they retired that they started planning for life after work.

The quantitative portion of the study indicates that 53 percent of retirees sought professional advice for their retirement planning, with nearly a third indicating that the reason they didn’t was that in their opinion professional retirement planning services cost more than the value delivered.

Once retired, the lion’s share of retirees’ monthly income comes from pensions and Social Security, which together comprise 58 percent of monthly cash flow among those surveyed.

Nearly seven in ten retirees said they use a financial advisor. While retirees share common everyday concerns about budgeting and spending, the single greatest challenge they expressed was in managing and dealing with medical care, a concern shared by one in four retirees.

Other key findings include:

“The good news is that most retirees are in the enviable position to pursue new interests, step back from the day-to-day stresses of life, and spend more time with their family,” said Spectrem President George H. Walper, Jr. “However, ensuring sufficient income in retirement requires advanced planning. Our research has found that retirees who receive help from an advisor in planning for retirement often appreciate the fact that a plan is in place, and are reassured that their assets will likely outlive them.”

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