I Asked Retired People What They'd Do Differently. Three in Four Said the Same Thing.

By IlY · Aug 10, 2026 · 7 min read

The best retirement advice doesn't come from someone selling you a plan. It comes from people who already did it, looked back, and told the truth about what they got wrong. A new study asked 1,600 of them. The answers were more unanimous, and more uncomfortable, than I expected.

My uncle retired at 61, not because he'd planned to, but because his body made the decision for him.

He'd always said he'd work till 67, maybe later, he liked the job. Then his knees went, then his back, and a role that had been fine at 55 became impossible at 61. He left six years earlier than he'd pictured, with six fewer years of savings than the plan assumed, and I remember him saying something at a family dinner that stuck with me. He said, “Nobody tells you that you don't get to choose the date.”

I thought about that a lot, and recently I went looking to see whether he was an outlier or the rule. Turns out there's real data on this, fresh data, and my uncle wasn't unusual at all. He was the median.

Here's what people who have actually retired say they'd do differently. Not advice from someone selling a retirement product. Advice from the people who already crossed the line and looked back. And the striking thing is how much they agree.

The number that stops you cold: 76%

In July 2026, the TIAA Institute published a study built on a survey of nearly 1,600 American adults, including a large group of current retirees. The single loudest finding: 76% of current retirees wish they had started saving earlier. 71% wish they had saved more.

Sit with those numbers for a second, because they're close to unanimous. Three out of four people who have already retired, looking back over an entire working life, land on the same regret: I should have started sooner. This isn't a fringe view or a cautionary tale about a few people who messed up. It's the clear majority verdict of the people who have actually lived it.

And notice what the regret is not. It's mostly not “I picked the wrong funds” or “I should have timed the market better” or “I should have found a hotter investment.” The number one regret, by a mile, is simply about time, starting earlier, letting the money compound longer. The people who did it are telling the people who haven't yet: the lever that mattered most was the one you have right now and will never have this much of again.

The advice: start now, even if it's small

So the first and biggest piece of advice from actual retirees is the least glamorous one imaginable. Start. Now. Even if the amount feels too small to matter.

Here's why they're so unanimous about it, and it's just math. Money invested in your twenties has three to four decades to compound. The same amount invested in your forties has half that. The early dollars aren't just early, they're worth dramatically more, because they have the most time to grow. A modest amount started young beats a large amount started late, and the retirees know this now because they watched it happen to their own accounts, in real time, too late to change it.

This is what makes the 76% regret so poignant. It's not that they couldn't have afforded to save a little in their twenties. It's that the little they could have saved would have mattered enormously, and it didn't feel like it would at the time, so they waited. The regret isn't about money they didn't have. It's about the power of the years they let pass.

The advice they didn't see coming: you don't pick the date

This is the one my uncle learned the hard way, and the data backs him up completely.

The TIAA study found that current retirees actually left the workforce at an average age of 57. Meanwhile, people still working expect to retire at 62. That's a five-year gap between the plan and the reality, and it runs the wrong direction, people retire earlier than they expect, not later.

Why? Because more than half of retirees, 51%, said they left the workforce for over a year due to an unplanned event. Health problems. Layoffs. A company reorganization. Caregiving for a parent or spouse. Life reached in and made the decision for them, exactly like it did for my uncle's knees.

This is the piece of advice that the retirement-planning industry quietly underweights, because it's inconvenient. Every plan assumes you'll work until your target age and save right up to the finish line. But half of people don't get that finish line. They get pulled out early, with fewer savings years than the plan assumed, right when they were counting on those final high-earning years to do the heavy lifting.

The retirees' advice: plan as if you might have to stop at 57, not 67. Build the buffer that assumes the date isn't yours to choose. Because for half of people, it isn't.

The cost nobody plans for: healthcare

Here's where the numbers get genuinely frightening, and it's the regret that had teeth for the people who missed it. In the TIAA study, 49% of retirees regret underestimating healthcare and long-term care costs. Nearly half. And when you see the actual figure, you understand why.

Most people, when they picture retirement, do not have a number like $172,500 in their mental math. They picture Medicare covering things. But Medicare covers roughly 80% after deductibles, and the remaining 20% of a lifetime of medical care is enormous. Half of retirees told a separate survey they thought Medicare would cover more than it does.

So the advice from people who've been surprised by this: the healthcare bill is real, it's six figures per person, and it's the single most underestimated line item in retirement. Plan for it explicitly, don't assume it's handled.

The regret that ties it all together: no plan at all

Underneath the savings and the healthcare, there's a quieter finding that connects everything. 47% of retirees regret not having clear retirement goals. More than one in three regret not having a specific written plan at all. They saved, sort of, in a vague way, without a target, without a number, without a real strategy, and they arrived at retirement and discovered that vague isn't a plan, it's just hope with a 401k attached.

And here's the data point that turns this from a feeling into a fact. The TIAA study found that retirees who worked with a financial professional carried significantly fewer regrets across every single category. Just 26% of those with an advisor regretted underestimating life events, compared to 43% of those without one. Not because the advisor picked magic investments, but because having a plan, any real plan, forced them to confront the healthcare costs, the early-retirement risk, and the savings math before it was too late to do anything about it.

The regret isn't really about advisors. It's about planning. The people who sat down and made themselves look at the hard numbers, whether with a professional or not, ended up with far fewer regrets than the people who just drifted toward retirement hoping it would work out.

What the retirees are actually telling us

Put all of it together and the message from 1,600 people who have already crossed the line is remarkably consistent, and it comes down to this:

Start earlier than feels necessary, because 76% of us wish we had, and the early years are worth the most. Save more than feels comfortable, because 71% of us wish we had, and you'll want the buffer. Plan as if you might have to stop at 57, not 67, because half of us didn't get to choose our own date. Take the healthcare number seriously, six figures per person, because half of us underestimated it and it hurt. And make an actual plan with real goals, because the people who did carried fewer regrets in every single category.

None of this is exciting. None of it is a secret investment or a clever trick. It's the least glamorous advice imaginable, from the only people qualified to give it, the ones who already did it and looked back.

My uncle is doing okay, in the end. He adjusted, he downsized, he made it work. But I think about that line of his every time I'm tempted to tell myself I'll start saving properly next year, when things are easier. Nobody tells you that you don't get to choose the date. Three in four retirees are telling us exactly that, if we're willing to listen before it's our turn to look back.

The best time to hear this was decades ago. The second best time is whatever age you are right now, reading it.

Data from the TIAA Institute's July 2026 report “Bridging the Gaps in Retirement Expectations,” a survey of nearly 1,600 U.S. adults, and Fidelity's 2025 Retiree Health Care Cost Estimate.