From “Retirement Dream” to Nightmare – Here’s How to Avoid the Trap

Guest Post by Peter Reagan

Nearly 1 in 5 retirees say their golden years feel more like a nightmare. Here are the top 3 mistakes they made – and how you can plan ahead, avoid costly blunders and turn your retirement dream into reality…

It never ceases to fascinate me how people have a tendency to only remember the things that they actually want to hear…

It’s like those car dealerships that promise, “Just $199 down and $199 per month and you can drive away in a brand new car today!”

The ad isn’t lying – not exactly. It’s just that the offer might only allow 2,000 miles of driving per year. Or the $199 per month payment is just for the first year – after which, a five-figure “balloon payment” comes due. Or the deal offers financing at an eye-watering rate, and those $199 monthly payments don’t even cover your accrued interest…

When it comes to financial transactions, always read the fine print! Don’t assume anything.

A lot of people make the same mistakes around planning for retirement. It’s so easy to focus on the dream. Telling the boss to “take this job and shove it.” Fantasizing about a nice retirement party, a gold watch and a monthly pension check for the rest of their lives… Enough money to finally visit all those exotic locations, try out all those new hobbies – ultimately, at long last, to live your life by your own rules. 

Listen, these are all fantastic goals!  To get there, though, you have to make a plan.

Trust me – retiring without the planning usually doesn’t turn out the way you want.

Don’t take my word for it! As Deb Boyden writes for Fortune:

In fact, according to Schroders’ 2025 US Retirement Survey, 19% of retirees are “struggling” or “living the nightmare” 

That’s nearly one in every five retirees warning us that retirement is not fun and carefree, that retirement is a struggle.

Stressful and challenging – in other words, “a nightmare.”

Let’s take steps that their nightmare doesn’t become our reality…

What is the biggest obstacle to the dream retirement?

The answer to that question is an ugly word.

As USA Today reported recently:

Inflation has come down from the dizzying 9.1% rate in 2022, but Americans are still worried rising prices will prevent them from retiring comfortably, a new survey by brokerage Charles Schwab showed.

Inflation is the top obstacle to a comfortable retirement, said 57% of the 1,000 U.S. 401(k) plan participants and an additional 100 Gen Z plan participants surveyed last spring.

In fact, participants who “feel very likely to achieve their savings goals” decreased by nearly one-fourth since the 2024 survey (from 43% to 34%).

That’s a major drop in confidence, primarily due to inflation.

Maybe that’s why only five percent of respondents in the Schroders’ 2025 US Retirement Survey said that they are “living the dream” in retirement.

I wish that I could tell you that things on that front will get easier. I hope they do! But, as international pilot and author Harrison Jones says:

“Failing to plan is planning to fail. Hope is not a plan.”

Hope is not a plan. Our dreams are not reality. 

Retiring into the good life won’t be easy for most of us. Big goals aren’t easy (that’s why most people don’t reach them).

That’s a bitter pill to swallow. Once we accept this, though, then we can take steps to start turning our hopes and dreams into a plan.

Because, here’s the good news – just because something isn’t easy doesn’t mean it’s unattainable.

Here’s how to turn those dreams into reality…

From dreaming of retirement to planning for retirement

Step one: Let’s acknowledge the mistakes people make. Back to the Fortune article for the most common retirement planning mistakes. Most people:

1. Aren’t saving enough
2. Don’t plan for the unexpected
3. Wing it

Saving for retirement: Most people simply aren’t saving enough toward retirement. A glance at typical balances of retirement savings demonstrates this all too clearly:

Age	Typical savings	Average savings
Less than 35	$18,800	$49,130
35-44	$45,000	$141,520
45-54	$115,000	$313,220
55-64	$185,000	$537,560

Source: Federal Reserve: Survey of Consumer Finances, 2023.

Yes, there’s a huge difference between “typical savings” (that’s “median” for statistics nerds) and “average savings,” because a relatively small handful of very successful people skew the average. It’s more helpful to look at the numbers in the “typical” column.

Why aren’t people saving more? Well…

• They don’t have enough income to set any aside (after all, a shocking 42% don’t have any emergency savings)
• They spend all excess income on consumption – a new TV or the latest designer shoes
• They’re diligently spending every spare dollar paying off debt
• They’ve given up hope of ever retiring 

Regardless of the reason (and I honestly hope that last one isn’t the case for you!) most people either can’t or don’t save enough.

The first step is to get a handle on your savings. Build an emergency fund first, then start contributing as much as you can afford to your IRA or 401(k). Learn more about deciding how much to save for retirement.

Plan for the unexpected: We live in a world in which the unexpected can and does happen. We don’t know what will happen, or when – but we can build financial resilience into our savings.

That simple step can ensure the next crisis doesn’t derail our retirement plans.

Winging it: Too many people (perhaps even most people?) simply don’t plan for retirement at all. They take life as it comes, instead of using their current resources to build a nest egg for their golden years. Like the story of the grasshopper and the industrious ants, they ignore it now and suffer later.

I get it! Planning is scary, especially when your dreams are so much bigger than your bank account. You don’t have to give up on your dreams, though – your retirement plan can include “stretch goals” as well as a baseline.

So don’t be afraid to make a plan! Even a modest plan consisting of nothing more than annual savings goals and your magic number will get you ahead of the curve.

Protecting your purchasing power

It’s not enough to know how much you need to retire today if we don’t know how much the cost of living will rise in the future.

This is an unavoidable fact of life: Prices will go up – not just on food and groceries, but on healthcare and housing.

There are two ways to approach this cost-of-living factor:

• Invest more aggressively: Take more risk and hope your timing is perfect
• Protect your purchasing power: Diversify with inflation-resistant assets

Ideally, your savings will have both high-risk and low-risk assets. That’s called diversification – and proper diversification ensures that, no matter what happens, your savings will endure. Diversification is so powerful that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) calls it “magic”…

The Magic of Diversification. The practice of spreading money among different investments to reduce risk is known as diversification. By picking the right group of investments, you may be able to limit your losses and reduce the fluctuations of investment returns without sacrificing too much potential gain.

The best inflation-resistant store of value, in my opinion, is also one of the most underappreciated by the financial services industry. Physical precious metals, especially physical gold and silver, don’t just preserve your purchasing power from the corrosive effects of inflation. They also add the benefits of diversification to your savings.

Best of all, physical precious metals shine brightest during times of crisis. When everything else is falling apart. I believe nearly every American would benefit from diversifying their savings with physical precious metals. Birch Gold Group specializes in helping you buy gold and silver with the money you’ve already saved for retirement.

As soon as you’ve made your first draft of your retirement plan, I encourage you to learn more about the benefits of investing in physical precious metals.

Note: I write a lot about retirement planning – here are the articles readers have found most helpful over the last few years:

• 3 Secrets to Living the Good Life in Retirement
• The Three Phases of Retirement Saving (and how to avoid the #1 mistake)
• 4 Dangerous Retirement Assumptions, and How to Fix Them Today

Ever notice how prices keep climbing but your paycheck stays flat? That’s what happens when more dollars chase the same goods. A physical gold IRA lets you own real metal that holds its value even as the dollar weakens. You get all the tax perks of an IRA plus the security of tangible assets you can count on. Click below to grab your FREE Gold IRA info kit from Birch Gold Group and learn just how simple it is to add real metal to your retirement plan.