8 Mistakes Couples Make When Planning for Retirement

3. Being overly generous with loved ones

It’s natural to want to help your children, grandchildren, or other close relatives or friends, especially if they’re going through a rough patch. But lending or gifting money to loved ones should come with guardrails — otherwise, you could put your retirement timeline in jeopardy.

Almost two-thirds of parents with adult children say they’ve sacrificed financially to assist their kids, with 37 percent admitting their retirement savings suffered as a result, according to an April 2024 Bankrate survey.

But deciding how much money you’re willing and, even more important, able to give can be hard. A quarter of couples surveyed by Ameriprise Financial in January 2024 disagreed about how much they should spend on children and grandchildren as they prepare for retirement and estate planning.

Before lending a loved one money, evaluate the tradeoffs so that you’re “clear-eyed about what you can afford to give without compromising your own financial stability,” Fletcher advises. “Saying yes without a clear understanding of the long-term consequences can lead to significant shortfalls later.”

4. Failing to prepare for the unexpected

Many Americans retire sooner than they expected. According to the Employment Benefit Research Institute, the median age at which working people say they intend to retire is 65, but the median age current retirees leave the workforce is 62. Almost two-thirds of retirees cited changes at their company or a health issue as the trigger for their earlier-than-expected retirement.

Just as building an emergency fund prepares you for a rainy day, you can make some moves while you’re still working full-time to mitigate the possible financial harm of an early retirement.

If you can afford to, take advantage of catch-up contributions to retirement accounts. In 2025, a worker age 50 or older can put an additional $1,000 into an IRA. Workers ages 50 to 59 and 64 and older can put an extra $7,500 into a 401(k) or 403(b) account. For those ages 60 to 63, there’s an even higher catch-up limit of $11,250, meaning they can stash up to $34,750 in a 401(k) or 403(b) this year.

Americans with a high-deductible health insurance plan might benefit from a health savings account, or HSA. These accounts allow you to make tax-free withdrawals for qualified medical expenses, and after age 65, the funds can be spent on anything, though you’ll owe income tax. Also, HSAs permit catch-up contributions: Those 55 and older can save $1,000 extra in 2025, for a total of $5,300 for those with individual health insurance or $9,550 for those with family coverage.

5. Collecting Social Security too early

The date that the higher earner in a couple chooses to claim Social Security impacts not only their household’s budget in retirement but also their partner’s lifetime benefit. That’s because claiming Social Security before you reach full retirement age (FRA) — 67 if you were born on Jan. 2, 1960, or later — can lower your monthly payments by as much as 30 percent and reduce your partner’s survivor benefits if you die first. For married couples with large wage disparities, lower survivor benefits could severely hurt the surviving spouse’s financial stability in the long run.

Because of Social Security’s lifelong duration and annual cost-of-living adjustment, “not taking Social Security early is one of the most important things you can do to provide longevity protection for your finances,” says David Haas, president at Cereus Financial Advisors in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey. That’s why he advises couples to have the higher earner wait at least until they reach full retirement age to claim their benefits.

“Many people wrongly assume that even though the monthly benefit amount will be lower, the more years of getting Social Security will make up for it," Adams says. "The truth is the break-even age for Social Security is around age 79 or 80, meaning that if you expect to live past that age, then you are better off waiting to take Social Security.”

If you wait past full retirement age to claim Social Security, your benefit amount increases by 8 percent for each year you delay until age 70, which will further increase your spouse’s survivor benefit.

6. Underestimating health care costs

Even with Medicare coverage, couples should prepare to pay a lot of money for health care costs in retirement. A 65-year-old who retired in 2024 will spend an average of $165,000 out of pocket on medical expenses in retirement, Fidelity estimates. But only a third of people specifically save for such costs. If you or your spouse retires before age 65 — when you can enroll in Medicare — you’ll face even higher health care costs, since one of you would likely need to join the other’s workplace plan or purchase coverage through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace. The estimated cost of a silver-tier ACA plan for a 60-year-old in 2025 is $1,054 per month without financial assistance, or about double that for a couple, according to the health care research organization KFF.

7. Overlooking long-term care

More than half of Americans will require some kind of long-term care during their lifetime, according to a study by the Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation. But paying for such assistance can be expensive. According to a Vanguard report, about half of retirees won’t incur any long-term care costs. Another 20 percent or so will incur costs of up to $100,000, about 10 percent will have costs between $100,000 and $250,000, and around 20 percent will incur costs over $250,000.

Given the rising costs of home health aides, assisted living facilities, nursing-home care and other health services for aging adults, you should consider sitting down with your partner and talking through how you’d pay for long-term care if one or both of you needed it.

Long-term care insurance can help mitigate those costs, but it’s often pricey, and coverage is typically capped at a certain daily or monthly amount, up to a lifetime limit or a specific number of years. If you’re considering obtaining long-term care insurance, Haas recommends purchasing it in your 50s or earlier — the longer you wait to obtain a policy, the higher the premiums will be.

For instance, according to the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance, a 55-year-old couple would spend an average of $2,080 a year for a long-term care policy today with benefits equal to $165,000, but a 65-year-old pair would need to shell out $3,750 annually for the same plan.

Some couples may find a better option in “self-insuring” — setting aside funds for medical costs in a separate investment account they can tap when needed. If you don’t have the means to fund another savings pot, you should still come up with a long-term care plan by reviewing your assets and deciding what could potentially be sold to cover those expenses.

8. Not knowing what you want to do

Most couples’ retirement planning centers on how much they need to save and when they want to leave the workforce. There’s less focus on what they’ll do day-to-day after they retire.

“I always recommend that clients close to retirement ... practice being retired,” says Jamie Ebersole, founder of Ebersole Financial in Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts. 

“Go where you think you want to live. Do the activities that you think you will enjoy. Talk with your partner about what you like and don’t like, and make sure that your goals as a couple are aligning,” he says. “If they are not, you will have time to revise your retirement vision and tweak things to make it better.”

Ebersole recommends doing a trial run over a large block of time, one month if possible, to see what you want your retirement lifestyle to be like. If that’s not feasible, consider taking a short staycation to test the waters and revisiting the exercise several times in the years leading up to retirement.