The 4 Biggest Money Mistakes I See (And How to Fix Them)

Jeff Campbell, CFP®

Retirement can be one of the most rewarding phases of life, but planning for it comes with its own set of challenges.

You’ve worked hard, made smart financial choices, and taken responsibility for your future. Yet, like many people nearing retirement, you might still feel that gnawing sense of uncertainty. Have you missed something important? Is your retirement plan as solid as it could be?

If you’re feeling this way, here’s some comfort: your anxiety isn’t misplaced.

It’s a sign that you care deeply about safeguarding your future and that of your loved ones. Financial planning for retirement is complex, and even the most diligent and responsible savers can make mistakes.

The good news?

These mistakes are often avoidable.

Below, I’ll outline four of the biggest money mistakes I see even savvy people make. More importantly, I’ll share how the right guidance can help you avoid these pitfalls and retire with confidence and peace of mind.

Mistake 1: Not Knowing if You’re Taking the Right Amount of Investment Risk

When it comes to investments, many couples find themselves caught between two extremes. One spouse reads articles about the latest market trends and debates whether their portfolio is aggressive enough to sustain growth throughout retirement. The other prefers playing it safe and keeping the bulk of their money in cash or conservative bonds, afraid of any potential downturn.

Here’s the problem with both approaches:

Too much risk can leave your retirement exposed to market volatility. If a crash occurs early in retirement, you may struggle to recover.
Not enough risk, on the other hand, can leave your nest egg vulnerable to inflation. Over time, rising costs can quietly diminish the value of your savings.

The right balance lies somewhere in between, but finding it isn’t as simple as following generic rules like “subtract your age from 100 to find your equity allocation.” Your ideal mix depends on deeply personal factors, like your income needs, risk tolerance, and retirement timeline.

How an Advisor Can Help

A skilled advisor will craft a tailored asset allocation strategy that:

Protects your savings from excessive risk while ensuring sustainable growth.
Takes inflation into account, so your purchasing power isn’t eroded over time.
Aligns your investments with your personal goals, rather than generic rules or Wall Street trends.

Working with an expert allows you to strike just the right balance, keeping your nest egg safe while ensuring it works as hard as you’ve worked to build it.

Social Security is one of the most critical components of your retirement income, yet many couples approach it with guesswork. One or both spouses may assume there’s a default “right” age to claim benefits, such as 62, 67, or 70, without fully understanding the tradeoffs involved.

Here are some factors that are often overlooked:

Spousal and survivor benefits: These can significantly impact your plan, especially in cases where one spouse earned significantly more than the other.
Break-even age calculations: Claiming early provides smaller monthly checks, but for a longer period. Delaying increases your payments but shortens the time you’ll receive them. The right choice depends on your expected lifespan and income needs.
The ripple effect on taxes and income planning: Social Security benefits interact with your other income sources, sometimes increasing your tax burden.

How an Advisor Can Help

A financial advisor will model different Social Security claiming strategies to find the one that works best for your situation. By aligning this decision with your overall income plan, they help ensure you get the most out of your benefits while avoiding unnecessary tax or cash flow challenges.

Mistake 3: Spending Too Conservatively or Not Conservatively Enough

Balancing spending during retirement can be tricky. Often, one spouse is eager to enjoy the fruits of their decades-long career, planning trips, hobbies, and experiences. Meanwhile, the other is cautious, worried that overspending early on could leave them financially vulnerable in later years.

This push-and-pull can lead to common mistakes:

Spending too conservatively: You might hold back too much, sacrificing lifestyle and enjoyment in the prime years of retirement.
Overspending early on: Alternatively, you might spend too freely at first and risk running low on funds as you age, particularly if unforeseen health expenses arise.

Both these outcomes can be emotionally and financially draining—not just for you, but for your relationship and family dynamics.

How an Advisor Can Help

A thoughtful advisor helps couples develop a spending plan they can trust. By analyzing your savings, future income, and legacy goals, they’ll create a plan that:

Ensures you’re comfortably meeting your day-to-day needs.
Provides room for enjoyment in retirement’s earlier, more active years.
Keeps provisions in place for healthcare costs or long-term care later in life.
Helps you maintain flexibility so that, if life throws surprises your way, your finances remain resilient.

An effective plan doesn’t just deliver financial stability. It offers clarity and peace of mind, so you can focus on living life to the fullest without second-guessing every dollar you spend.

Mistake 4: Missing Hidden Costs That Eat Away at Your Plan

Many people nearing retirement are diligent about managing investment fees, but fewer pay attention to other costs that can quietly erode their savings, including:

Taxes: Poorly-timed withdrawals or missed opportunities (like Roth conversions) can result in avoidable tax bills.
Required minimum distributions (RMDs): Mismanaging when and how to take these can lead to unnecessary income taxes and penalties.
Uncoordinated accounts: If your investments aren’t working in harmony—for example, if different accounts hold conflicting or redundant assets—you may miss out on potential growth or incur excessive fees.

These hidden costs add up and, over decades, can seriously impact your plan’s effectiveness.

How an Advisor Can Help

An experienced advisor takes a proactive approach to identifying and addressing these inefficiencies in your plan.

Whether it’s minimizing tax drag, optimizing when to take withdrawals, or rebalancing your portfolio regularly, they help ensure you’re keeping more of what you’ve earned. Best of all, they take care of the heavy lifting, so you don’t have to sweat the details yourself.

Chart Your Course with Confidence

The financial mistakes outlined above are common among even the savviest investors. The good news is, you’ve already done the hard part. You’ve built significant savings, taken responsibility for your financial future, and shown the kind of discipline that most people only dream about.

Now, you’re at a critical inflection point.

The next few years will play a pivotal role in determining whether your retirement is secure, enjoyable, and stress-free. This is the perfect time to seek guidance. With the right financial advisor by your side, you don’t have to figure it all out alone.

You deserve to sip coffee on your porch in the mornings – not trawl through investment spreadsheets. You deserve peace of mind knowing your plan is solid. And you deserve a retirement that’s as inspiring as the career you worked so hard to build.