Advice | My husband just retired. I’m scared to death of running out of money. (2024)

So much retirement advice is about the accumulation phase of your life. It’s drilled into us to save, save, save.

Then comes the time to start drawing down those savings.

“Turning on spending is a different mind-set,” said Christine Benz, director of personal finance and retirement planning for Morningstar.

With retirement, savers often condition themselves that money can go into their accounts but nothing can ever come out, she said.

That’s exactly how I feel.

I’m fighting the panic because Lord help us when I stop working full time and we start tapping both retirement accounts.

The problem is all the what-ifs flood my brain.

What if a major health crisis upends our plans? What if we live into our 90s or older?

Part of my anxiety stems from the timing of my husband’s retirement. It came sooner than we had planned. A troubling workplace issue proved untenable.

During the bad days of the coronavirus pandemic, a wave of older workers retired and helped spark the “Great Resignation.” But post-pandemic financial stress and inflation have ushered in the “Great Return,” sending many people, including retirees, back to work.

A Pew Research Center survey in 2022 found that low pay, a lack of opportunities for advancement and feeling disrespected at work were the top reasons Americans quit their jobs.

My husband and I spent decades saving for retirement — he in the government’s Thrift Savings Plan, me in my company’s 401(k) plan. About 15 years ago, we began working with financial professionals to “stress test” our retirement strategy. In other words, they scrutinized our financial holdings to see whether we had enough fixed income, savings and investments to live comfortably in retirement.

We do.

Before my husband retired, we paid off our home, which was part of the plan. We don’t carry any credit card debt we can’t pay by the next billing cycle. We have no auto loans and haven’t for years. We saved to send our three children to college debt-free.

And, yet, I’m scared. (My husband, by the way, isn’t and probably is booking a tee time on an affordable local golf course.)

“We do see that the shift from saving for retirement to living in retirement is one of the biggest transitions that a person will make in their lifetime,” said Keri Dogan, head of financial wellness and retirement income solutions at Fidelity Investments, one of the largest managers of workplace retirement plans.

I know there are many people struggling to save for retirement. Among non-retirees, only 31 percent felt that their retirement savings were on track in 2022, down from 40 percent a year earlier, according to data from the Federal Reserve.

We also need to recognize that many retirees are doing well, even if they don’t feel as if they are.

The Fed found that 79 percent of retirees said they were doing “at least okay” financially. And those who received income from sources such as wages, pensions or investments were much more likely to be doing at least okay financially than those who had no private income, the Fed said.

It can be easy to dismiss the concerns of people who saved well but still fret about their finances.

I wrote a column about a woman I met after a church service who was in tears about being pushed into retirement earlier than she had planned because of an unexpected layoff.

“How much do you have saved?” I asked, expecting the worst.

She was 64 and single — and had more than $1 million in her workplace retirement account.

You might be thinking, “If that woman was worried she won’t make it through retirement on her savings, I’m in deep trouble.”

“The good news is, when you talk to people who are a year or two into retirement, they’ve settled down and the anxiety has decreased pretty significantly,” Dogan said.

There are some things I can do — you can do — to alleviate some anxiety.

If you’ve spent the time to develop a personalized retirement plan, fall back on it when you’re stressing.

If you’re concerned about having a regular stream of income, consider an annuity, Dogan said.

If you go that route, do your homework and make sure you understand the pros and cons, and the fees involved.

“One of the top concerns that we hear about from people living into retirement is the need for a steady income,” Dogan said.

My husband and I have decided against buying an annuity, because we both have pensions and will collect Social Security.

Dogan also recommend taking a deep dive into your expenses.

“The best thing I think that individuals can do is actually sit down and go through their assumptions about what their spending is going to look like in retirement,” she said.

Look at the necessities — housing, medical expenses, utilities — and try to cover as much as you can with guaranteed income, then consider what spending is within your control. Maybe you want to travel a lot but the stock market is down and you don’t want to pull money out of your account. So, the cruise may have to wait for another year.

Dogan also pointed out something that calmed me down.

“Given the research that we see on happiness and anxiety, people who are underspending in retirement are pretty happy,” she said. “There is a peace of mind and happiness even if they’re not spending as much as they could. Who are we to say they should spend more?”

But there is one thing my husband keeps saying when I start worrying about tapping into our retirement funds: “The kids will be happy to spend our money if we don’t.”