Retirement: What I Should Have Done

  • 21st Aug 2026
  • 5 min read

During the act of retirement, I think many people have some thoughts about "what I should have done" or "what I'd do differently" when it comes to saving for retirement. I saw this short article and thought it was worth passing along.

What I Wish I'd Known at 45 (PDF)

I'm not going to share my own "this is what I'd do differently" list. I think I've probably shared enough of that over this series of notes. Instead, I'd like to challenge the younger folks with these thoughts:

  1. You should try to think about retirement planning more. For busy, working people, the retirement planning list seems easy. "Put money into my 401k." Done. You may be spending 5 minutes every year when you renew your company benefit elections. I suggest you spend more time on the retirement part. How about a simple spreadsheet that attempts to predict your retirement savings balance over time? Maybe it includes a column where you update what your balance actually is that year. Are you on track? Have you attempted to predict your large, future expenses? Allocating an hour or two a year on your calendar just to consider your retirement plan is not too much time.

  2. Managing your retirement nest egg is not "all or nothing" as far as investment risk goes. Are all your 401k contributions going into one target date fund? Are your reasonably sure of that date? Why not take some percentage of your nest egg and push it into a much later target date fund. That fund will likely be more heavily weighted for stocks. More risk. More reward. If the stock market tanks, it hurts, but it only really hurts a small percentage of your nest egg. I had my 401k split into 3 different target date funds. My retirement date was a moving target.

Replies

From John H.

Folks need to also consider before tax versus after tax 401k savings. Now that I am retired I wish I had more after tax 401k savings.

From Ray G.

Looking back after one year of retirement, I wish that I had spent more time while still working talking with retired folks, especially those in the technical profession such as with Corning. I've learned that there isn't a one size fits all retirement, but it helps greatly to gain insight from as many folks as possible who entered their new career.

My view is that the financial aspect is the most straightforward part of retirement planning, but it gets the most attention. It's still very important, because if you get that wrong, it will be very difficult to meet all your goals in retirement. This may sound overly simple, but your retirement plan should have a >75% success rate while replacing your current income. I say to replace your working income since I believe that your spending won't change much when you retire. When to take SSA, your pension, your asset allocation for 401k/IRA, withdrawal rate, taxes, etc. is all part of the financial retirement plan. Our financial advisor for about 10 years leading up to my retirement ran monte carlo simulations, etc. along the way to determine the success rate of the plan. The planning tool on Empower does a decent job of the same thing. Just make sure you use the correct assumptions, for example that your budget in the early part of retirement is about the same as your last year working. The caveat here is that some folks might know for sure that they are going to spend more in early retirement due to lifestyle changes such as significant travel, moving to a more expensive area, or buying an expensive item like a big boat. In this case, the plan has to handle that. Some folks might think that they will spend much less in retirement, but I would be cautious about making that assumption.

Neither you nor your spouse will become a different person when you retire. Your interests won't change, you might just pursue them at different levels after you retire. Yes, you will have more free time, but your older body might limit some of your pursuits and like it or not you will make more trips to the doctor.

In summary:

  1. Your financial plan should assume (unless you have hard data) that you need to replace your working income in retirement and have a >75% chance of not running out of money.
  2. There isn't a one size fits all financial plan. Everyone will have a different SSA strategy, tax considerations, and tolerance for market downturns which leads to asset allocation. Some folks might not reach 75% because they are too conservative with their 401k/IRA. Most people will need to own some stock funds in retirement. Others might have difficulty because their plan relies on a heavy stock allocation (80/20 for example) and market downturns impact their plan....... and their health.
  3. Retirement is likely not going to be an earth shattering event for most people. We all know people who essentially never retire because they can't imagine doing anything else better (sports coaches, doctors, politicians, business leaders, professors, church leaders, etc.). If your career (at Corning) puts you in that camp, then retirement for you could be a shock.
  4. There isn't a one size fits all retirement plan for the non financial aspects either. Mark has sent many good videos on this key part of retirement, so learn from others and learn about yourself as much as possible.