61% of Americans Fear Running Out of Money More Than Death Itself
Read that sentence again.
That figure is from a recent Allianz survey, and it lands harder the second time. Death is universal. Running out of money is not. And yet a majority of Americans now consider the second outcome more frightening than the first.
This week on Money On Tap, Ben Brayshaw and Dan Michelon sit with the topic that shows up in the conference room more than any other these days: retirement anxiety — and why so many Americans feel unprepared.
Why This Anxiety Is Different From a Generation Ago
Talk to a financial planner ten or twenty years ago and the first question through the door was almost always the same: What stock should I buy?
Today it’s a different question, with a different weight to it: How do I make my money last for the rest of my life?
That shift is structural, not psychological. Several forces stacked at once:
- The pension is largely gone. Defined-benefit plans have been replaced by 401(k)s, which moved the entire risk of getting retirement right from the employer to the individual.
- Life expectancy keeps stretching. A married couple in their mid-sixties today has roughly a 25% chance that one spouse lives past 100. A retirement that used to last 15 years can now last 35.
- Inflation does its quiet work. A $70,000 household budget at just 3% inflation grows to over $125,000 in twenty years. Most people are planning against flat income.
- Social Security looks shaky. The trust fund is on track to be insolvent in roughly seven years, which would automatically reduce benefits to about 77% of scheduled payouts.
- Healthcare costs accelerate. Medicare at 65 isn’t free, and IRMAA adjustments can effectively add a 2–5% tax on top of your income.
- Adult children stay financially close longer. Many retirees are still supporting kids who can’t afford housing or service student loans.
This isn’t pessimism. It’s simple arithmetic running through a changed system.
The Five Fears Inside Retirement Anxiety
When you slow the conversation down, retirement anxiety almost always breaks into the same five fears. Almost no one carries all five equally. Almost everyone carries some combination.
- Running out of money. The headline fear — outliving the portfolio.
- Losing identity and purpose. Especially acute for executives, military, first responders, and anyone whose work has been their organizing structure.
- Becoming dependent on others. Particularly on adult children who are already stretched.
- Aging itself. Healthcare, mobility, the things you can’t insure against fully.
- The unknown. The cumulative weight of variables you can’t control — markets, taxes, policy, longevity.
The first fear gets all the planning attention. The other four rarely come up in a financial review, and yet they often matter more.
The Honeymoon, the Shock, and What Comes Next
Most people picture retirement as a single event: the last day of work, followed by freedom.
The reality is closer to three phases.
The Honeymoon — the first year or two. Bucket list, travel, golf, projects around the house. The dream you’ve been planning for.
The Shock — somewhere between months 12 and 24. The list is done. The mornings get long. The work friendships have quietly thinned. Marriage time multiplies (not always with grace). And the question shows up: now what?
The shock is real. It hits men especially hard, particularly those whose careers carried high responsibility. Real depression follows for some, and it’s rarely about money.
The Reframe — the discovery that retirement isn’t the absence of work. It’s the presence of purpose without obligation.
The people who navigate the shock well almost always do one of three things: they take a consulting role with a former employer, they pour themselves into a community or cause that matters to them, or they actively rebuild friendships and routines.
Retirement, as Ben put it on the show, isn’t in the Bible. The corporate version of it is a recent invention. The instinct to keep contributing isn’t a flaw to overcome — it’s a feature of being human.
The Financial Plan That Actually Reduces Anxiety
A good retirement plan doesn’t just project a number. It does six interlocking things at once.
1. Define what you actually want
The old rule of thumb — plan for 60–70% of pre-retirement income — is largely dead. Most of our clients budget closer to 100% or more. People don’t want less in retirement; they want more time to spend what they have.
The plan starts by quantifying the actual life you’re trying to fund — not a generic income target.
2. Build an income plan, not just an investment portfolio
This is the part most investors skip. The portfolio is the engine; the income plan is the route.
It coordinates Social Security timing, withdrawal sequencing, capital-gains versus ordinary-income decisions, Medicare cost thresholds, and the interplay between all of them. A great portfolio inside a bad income plan still loses.
3. Diversify the income, not just the assets
Real diversification in retirement isn’t stocks vs. bonds. It’s income type vs. income type:
- Pension (if you have one)
- Social Security
- Dividends and interest
- Investment withdrawals
- Annuity income (used selectively, with inflation protection)
- Rental property or business income
- Phased / consulting work in the first years
Each carries a different tax treatment, a different sequence sensitivity, and a different correlation to inflation. Stacked correctly, they cover each other’s weak quarters.
4. Stress-test for sequence-of-returns risk
Two retirees with identical portfolios can end up in completely different places — one wealthy at 85, one out of money by 78 — based purely on what the market did in the first five years of retirement. If the market drops while you’re withdrawing, the compounded damage is hard to recover from.
That’s sequence-of-returns risk, and it’s the single most underestimated risk in a retirement plan.
We have a short three-minute video on this on the BFG website. If you’ve never seen the math, it’s worth the watch.
5. Plan for healthcare separately
Medicare premiums, IRMAA brackets, dental, vision, hearing, long-term care. None of it is automatic. All of it is plannable.
6. Keep an emergency reserve — even in retirement
The roof doesn’t care that you’ve retired. Three to six months of expenses in liquid cash is just as important post-65 as it was pre-65. Maybe more.
The Emotional Plan Nobody Writes Down
This is the part of the conversation that almost never happens in a financial-planning meeting — and it’s the part that determines whether retirement actually feels like the reward you worked for.
A simple checklist worth keeping:
- Build the hobbies before you need them. The version you build at 55 lasts. The version you scramble for at 67 doesn’t.
- Maintain non-work friendships. Plural. They’re your social oxygen after the office stops providing it.
- Exercise as identity, not chore. Health is the leveraged asset of retirement.
- Find a place that needs you. Church, community group, food pantry, mentoring program, board service. The instinct to contribute doesn’t retire.
- Consider phased retirement. Consulting roles with your former employer often pay well, structure your year, and absorb the first wave of identity shock.
- Talk with your spouse honestly. Their schedule is also about to change.
The Bottom Line
Retirement anxiety is real, and it’s structural, and it’s growing.
The wealthiest people we sit with feel it. The most prepared people we sit with feel it. The fact that you feel it doesn’t mean something is wrong with your plan — it usually means a plan is missing.
The good news is that almost every fear inside retirement anxiety has a corresponding planning move.
Sequence risk has a mitigation. Inflation has a mitigation. Social Security uncertainty has a planning posture. Healthcare cost ramping has a strategy. And the loss-of-purpose piece — the part nobody plans for — has a discipline you can start now, years before you need it.
The cure for retirement anxiety isn’t more money. It’s a clearer plan.
Be informed. Be intentional. Be a good steward of what you’ve been entrusted with.
Want to Go Deeper?
We mentioned a white paper on this show. If you’d like a copy, email info@yourmoneyontap.com with "Retirement Anxiety white paper" in the subject line and we’ll send it over.
Next Steps
If you’d like a real look at your retirement-income plan — including a sequence-of-returns stress test, Social Security timing analysis, and tax-aware withdrawal sequencing — we invite you to schedule a conversation with our team.
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Email: info@yourmoneyontap.com
Bring your most recent one to two years of tax returns to your first meeting. Most planners don’t ask for them. That alone is a quiet way to tell whether someone is actually planning your retirement or just managing your investments.
Frequently Asked Question
What is sequence-of-returns risk, and why does it matter in retirement?
Sequence-of-returns risk is the danger that poor investment returns in the early years of retirement — while you’re actively withdrawing from your portfolio — can permanently damage the long-term viability of the plan, even if the average return over your full retirement is reasonable. Two retirees with identical portfolios and identical long-term returns can end up in dramatically different financial positions based purely on the order in which the market’s good and bad years occurred. Sequence-of-returns risk is the single most underestimated risk in a retirement income plan, and it’s why proper diversification, conservative early-years positioning, and stress testing are critical components of a real retirement plan.
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