Millions of Brits are living with a retirement epidemic – and it has a name - FORO
And in The Times this week: 'We’ve been married for 30 years but can’t agree on when to retire’
What’s in the newsletter?
Feature: Millions of Brits are living with a retirement epidemic – and it has a name
From Bec’s Desk: A new financial year
Read my articles in The Times: We’ve been married for 30 years but can’t agree on when to retire’
Millions of Brits are living with a retirement epidemic – and it has a name - FORO
Are you one of them? Do you have FORO?
Despite all the talk of adventure, freedom, and making the most of your later years, the Fear of Running Out (FORO) is quietly gripping a huge number of people approaching retirement in the UK right now.
If you recognise that gnawing anxiety – the one that wakes you up at 3am wondering whether your money will actually last – you’re far from alone. In fact, you’re very much in the majority. Research consistently shows that running out of money in retirement is the number one financial fear among people in their fifties and sixties, even among those who’ve been saving diligently for decades.
The cruel irony? Many of these same people are sitting on more than they realise – or are closer to a workable retirement than they think. But that doesn’t make the fear any less real.
Why the anxiety is real – even if the picture isn’t as bleak as it feels
Auto-enrolment has been in place since 2012, which means millions more people are saving into workplace pensions than ever before. That’s genuinely good news. But the reality is, most of us spent our forties – and sometimes our fifties – paying off mortgages, raising kids, and managing the general chaos of life. Long-term pension saving often came second.
The Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA) publishes the UK Retirement Living Standards each year, which give a useful benchmark. A comfortable retirement in the UK currently requires around £43,900 per year for a single person, or £60,600 for a couple. And the median pension pot for people approaching retirement is a long way short of what’s needed to generate that income.
The State Pension helps – the full New State Pension is currently £12,547 per year – but it’s not enough on its own, and not everyone qualifies for the full amount.
So if you’re looking at your numbers and feeling that stomach-dropping sense of is this really going to be enough, here’s a practical way to start working through it.
1. Get a clear picture of where you actually stand
FORO thrives in the fog. The first step is to pull everything together – your pension pots (and if you’ve had multiple employers, you may have more than you think), your ISAs, savings, any property, and likely debts or financial commitments.
Then check your State Pension forecast. You can do this in a few minutes at gov.uk. It tells you exactly how much you’re on track to receive and when. If you have gaps in your National Insurance record, you may be able to top them up – often at very good value.
Once you can see the full picture, you can start making real decisions rather than worrying in the abstract.
2. Build a realistic retirement budget
What does your retirement actually need to cost? Sit down and think through it properly – not just the basics, but the life you actually want. Travel. Hobbies. Helping the grandkids. Weekends away.
The PLSA Retirement Living Standards are a helpful starting point to reality-check your estimates. Be honest with yourself now, because clarity is far less frightening than uncertainty.
3. Map out where your income will come from
In retirement, your income shifts from a salary to a combination of sources: your pension drawdown, the State Pension, any ISA withdrawals, maybe some part-time work. Understanding how those layers stack together – and in what order you might draw from them – makes the whole thing feel much more manageable.
The government’s MoneyHelper website has retirement planning tools that can help you model this. And if you have a workplace pension, many providers also offer free guidance through Pension Wise, the government-backed service.
4. Get proper advice on how to invest and withdraw
Two of the most complex decisions in retirement are how to keep your pension invested as you approach and enter retirement, and how much you can sustainably take out each month.
The “4% rule” – withdrawing 4% of your pot in year one, then adjusting for inflation – is a useful rule of thumb. But it’s not gospel, and it doesn’t account for your State Pension, your ISAs, your tax position, or your specific goals.
A good financial adviser can help you build a strategy that actually fits your life. If your situation is relatively straightforward, Pension Wise (free, government-backed) is a great place to start before deciding whether you need fuller advice.
5. Consider whether part-time work is part of the equation
Retired doesn’t have to mean fully stopped. For many people, some form of part-time, flexible, or freelance work in the early years of retirement isn’t just about the money – it’s about staying connected, purposeful, and engaged.
Even a modest income from work can significantly reduce the pressure on your pension pot, and delay the point at which you need to draw it down heavily. That matters more than most people realise.
The bottom line
The best antidote to FORO isn’t a bigger pension pot. It’s a clearer picture of your real situation and a plan that accounts for what you actually have.
Many people who’ve faced this fear head on – who’ve done the numbers, sorted the State Pension, and made a proper plan – go on to have full, energetic, genuinely epic retirements. Not because they were wealthy, but because they stopped guessing and started knowing.
That’s the shift worth making.
How to Have an Epic Retirement walks you through exactly this process – from tracking down your pensions to building a clear picture of what you’ll have and what you’ll need.
Roadshows, roadshows, roadshows.
For the past three weeks I’ve been travelling across Australia, teaching advisers about the future of modern retirement. One week to go – Adelaide and Perth next, which probably sound like they’re half a world away to you. They basically are. But this is home for me, Down Under.
That said, I’ve been keeping a close eye on what’s happening in the UK – particularly the Pension Schemes Bill and the changes coming that will make it easier to compare your pensions as you approach retirement.
I actually have a big project in the works on exactly this. Watch this space.
My belief is simple: everyone in the UK should be able to properly scrutinise their workplace pension – the performance, the fees, the service – and make an informed decision about which fund to consolidate into as they head for retirement. Right now, getting that data is harder than it should be. I’m working on something to change that – as I’ve already done in Australia.
More soon. In the meantime - tell me - how long until you retire? And do you know others like you who are retiring soon that are trying to find your way? Can you help them find this newsletter by sending it on?
In additional news - almost all the filming and editing work we need to do on our UK Epic Retirement course is finished and we’re gearing up the tech now. It’s not a small project to bring this course to life. So I hope you’re as excited as we are.
You can register your interest here (no obligation), and we’ll be launching at pilot pricing (very low for this first run so we can gather feedback and refine it with you). It won’t be long now…. We anticipate our UK Pilot course will start in late May and go for 6 weeks finishing right as Summer holidays hit. So if you’re curious - sign up to learn more.
Have a great Sunday! And until next week — make it epic.
Cheers,
Bec Xx
Author, podcast host, columnist, retirement educator, and guest speaker
Get your copy of the UK Bestselling pre-retirement guidebook, How to Have an Epic Retirement: Your ultimate guide to living well, loving life and retiring with financial confidence.
We’ve been married for 30 years but can’t agree on when to retire’
Couples who have spent decades building a financial life together often forget to plan what happens when they stop work, says our retirement expert
Sarah and David had done everything right. They had paid off the mortgage, raised two children, built up decent pension pots, and were (on paper) well placed for their retirement. What they hadn’t done was talk to each other about how that retirement would actually look.
David, 61, was more than ready for his finish line. He had a date in mind and a list of things he wanted to do once he retired. Sarah, 58, had no intention of retiring. She had returned to work after their children had grown up and built a career she genuinely loved. She wasn’t ready to retire and, frankly, couldn’t imagine why anyone her age would be.
After years assuming that they were on the same page, when they eventually sat down to discuss their plans, they realised that they weren’t even reading from the same book.
Retirement planning is almost always framed as a numbers exercise — working out how much you have, how much you need, how long it will last and in what order to spend it to minimise tax. But for couples it should also be a negotiation, and one that you shouldn’t leave too late.
I am the retirement columnist for The Times, UK. You can read this, my most recent column here. And I’ve linked some other recent columns below.
The real risk from AI isn’t losing your job — it’s wrecking your retirement
A drop in income at 30 is inconvenient but at 50 it can be a disaster. We all need to wake up to the risks
Read more here
What I’ve heard should alarm every politician in the country
In an open letter to the government, Times Money’s retirement columnist sets out why people aren’t saving like they should
Read more here
The six biggest retirement fears — and how to solve them
Prepare for all the things that feel scary about giving up work, from running out of money to finding a way to fill up your time
Read more here
The 3am wake-up is one thing, but the Sarah and David dynamic is genuinely underreported. Couples can spend three decades building a financial plan and never once negotiate what the days actually look like — the numbers get sorted, the conversation about who each person is outside of work never quite happens.
The elephant in the room is of course the cost of care in later life, and how impossible it is to fund or even quantify.