How to Retire Better, From Retirees Who Learned the Hard Way

Thousands of Americans retire every day short on cash, friendships and plans.

Many retirees say they realised too late how they could have prepared for a more financially secure and rewarding postwork life. They would have focused on saving more money to cover the higher cost of living. Or they would have put more time into building relationships, taking better care of their health or cultivating new pursuits.

One reason retirement is so hard to prepare for is we often lack models of postwork life to emulate, retirees and financial advisers say. Though our culture is awash with images of professional success, we are a little hazier on what retirement success looks like and what it takes to achieve.

To sharpen that picture, we asked retirees about what they would do differently if given a second chance. Their regrets offer insights that can help people think and plan better at every life stage.

“Regret makes us feel bad, but it can help us do better,” said Daniel Pink, who researched people’s relationships to regret across a range of areas for his book “The Power of Regret.”

Here are three lessons retirees say they wish they had known sooner.

Investing for retirement means more than money

Jim Pilzner, a retired entrepreneur, regrets not setting goals for himself when he retired about four years ago. Now 78, he found there is only so much golf to play and only so many lunches to go to.

“I would counsel my younger self, and any other active, achieving person to recognise what drives them and what success really means,” said Pilzner.

He eventually figured out that the two things that motivated him most during his career—taking action and learning new things—were the same recipe he needed for retirement.

So this spring he enrolled at University of Nevada, Reno with two classes (earning a 4.0) and will be full-time in the fall. He is studying for a degree in political science and history.

Retirees frequently don’t realise how much their career provided a sense of identity and self-worth. Many fail to grasp the need to plan for a different source of purpose in retirement, said Betty Wang, a financial adviser in Denver.

People carefully plan how they will spend money in retirement but often give far less thought to how to spend their time.

Jay Holt, 74, regrets not retiring sooner. He planned to spend his postwork years playing polo. But in 2015, he fell while playing and had to give up the sport.

The resident of Cincinnatus, N.Y., who retired in 2013 at age 64, now wishes he had had a few more years in which to enjoy this activity.

Relationships are the key to retirement

The best predictor of longevity, health and happiness in later life is the quality of your relationships. That is the finding of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, which has followed families for decades.

Dan Roberts, 72, in Idyllwild, Calif., wishes he had kept up with former colleagues for personal and professional reasons.

Roberts retired about 18 months ago. Soon after, his son and his family, who were living just two hours away, moved to New Zealand.

Roberts and his wife, Robin Roberts, said only two visits a year are doable on their budget. He said he would have been able to afford more-frequent trips had he kept the door open to contract work by maintaining both his relationships with former colleagues and a project-management certification.

“We miss our grandchildren terribly,” his wife said.

David Edmisten, an adviser in Prescott, Ariz., said clients sometimes regret delaying retirement for this reason. The extra years working come at the cost of missing time with family and friends and postponing trips, he said.

“Some even had people close to them pass away and regret not being able to spend more time with their loved ones while they still could,” Edmisten said.

Retirement is longer than you think

Arthur Parmentier, 69, regrets retiring at 65, rather than working a few more years, partly because he missed out on a few more years of contributions to his retirement account.

The Providence, R.I., resident claimed Social Security at 65, accepting a lower monthly benefit than he would have received by waiting.

“Had I waited two more years or maybe three, I would have been quite comfortable, but right now, I’m living on Social Security and trying not to touch my IRA,” said Parmentier. “I think now that I may live well into my 80s, so I have to be prepared for that and make sure my IRA will last me throughout those years.”

The life expectancy for a 65-year-old is 84 for men and nearly 87 for women, according to projections by the Society of Actuaries based on 2019 data. Surveys suggest many Americans vastly underestimate those numbers. Of 1,500 adults ages 45 to 80 polled by the Society of Actuaries in 2015, 41% of pre retirees and 37% of retirees underestimated their life expectancy by five or more years, while 14% of pre retirees and 18% of retirees underestimated it by two to four years.

Social Security allows people to start their retirement benefits any time between ages 62 and 70, and increases the payment for every month of delay.

For many, the math favours starting at 70, when monthly benefits before cost-of-living adjustments are 76% higher than at 62, according to Laurence Kotlikoff, a Boston University economist.

A person who postpones benefits until age 70 instead of 62 would have to live to at least 80 to come out ahead, said Kotlikoff, founder of MaximizeMySocialSecurity.com, which advises people on claiming decisions.

For decades, the world’s computing power has quietly expanded at an astonishing pace.

From the first transistor developed at Bell Labs in 1947 to modern processors containing billions and even trillions of transistors, each generation of technology has been faster, smaller and more powerful than the last.

But according to quantum physicist and technology entrepreneur David Reilly, that era of effortless progress is beginning to slow.

Reilly, CEO of Sydney-based Emergence Quantum and Professor of Physics at the University of Sydney, says the computing infrastructure underpinning modern economies is approaching fundamental physical limits.

And that could have enormous implications for finance, artificial intelligence and global investment.

Speaking at an industry event organised by Kanebridge International, Reilly said many critical parts of modern society depend on computing and the infrastructure used to process information.

The slowdown behind the tech boom

For years, the technology industry relied on a steady improvement known as Moore’s Law, where the number of transistors on a chip doubled roughly every two years.

More transistors meant more computing power, allowing faster software, smarter devices and ever-larger data systems.

Today, however, those gains are slowing.

“It feels to me very innate that I’m going to just find that next year there’s going to be another breakthrough,” Reilly said.

“But if you look at the data…there’s a slowing down, a roll off in performance that started some 10, 20 years ago.”

Rather than making chips dramatically faster, manufacturers are now largely increasing computing capacity by packing more transistors onto each processor.

The approach works, but it comes with growing complexity, higher costs and increasing energy demands.

The brute-force race for AI

That challenge is already visible in the massive data centres being built to support artificial intelligence.

In the race to dominate AI, companies are constructing vast computing facilities that consume huge amounts of electricity and water. Reilly described this expansion as a “brute force” approach driven by the global competition to develop advanced AI systems.

Yet the demand for computing power continues to accelerate.

Artificial intelligence, advanced robotics, healthcare research, pharmaceuticals and cybersecurity all require far more processing capacity than today’s systems can easily deliver.

The question now facing the technology sector is whether traditional computing can keep up.

Enter quantum computing

That is where quantum computing enters the conversation.

Unlike conventional computers, which process information using binary switches that represent ones and zeros, quantum computers exploit the unusual behaviour of particles at the atomic scale.

Reilly describes them as a fundamentally different type of machine.

“So a quantum computer is a wave computer,” he said.

Instead of processing information through simple on-off switches, quantum systems can use wave-like properties of particles to process many possible outcomes simultaneously.

Those waves can interact in complex ways, reinforcing correct solutions while cancelling out incorrect ones. In theory, this allows quantum systems to tackle certain types of problems dramatically faster than classical computers.

What it could mean for finance

The concept may sound abstract, but its potential applications are significant.

Quantum computers are expected to transform areas such as materials science, chemical modelling and pharmaceutical development.

They could also help solve complex optimisation problems in logistics, finance and risk management.

For financial institutions in particular, the technology could offer new tools for detecting fraud, analysing market behaviour and optimising portfolios.

But the shift will not happen overnight.

“One message to take away is that quantum is not going to suddenly solve all of your problems,” Reilly said.

Instead, he said quantum systems will likely complement existing computing technologies as part of a broader and more diverse computing ecosystem.

Why data centres may soon “go cold”

One key change already emerging is how computing systems are physically designed.

Many next-generation technologies, including quantum processors, operate far more efficiently at extremely low temperatures. As a result, future data centres may rely heavily on cryogenic cooling systems to manage heat and energy consumption.

Reilly believes that the shift will gradually reshape the computing industry.

“Over the next five years, you’re going to see data centres go cold,” he said.

“And as that happens, they almost drag with them new compute paradigms.”

Emergence Quantum, the company he co-founded, is focused on developing technologies to support that transition, including cryogenic electronics and integrated hardware platforms designed for quantum computing and energy-efficient systems.

A new technological era

For investors and businesses, the technology remains in its early stages. But the scale of global interest is growing rapidly.

Governments, research institutions and technology companies are investing heavily in quantum research, betting it could become a foundational technology for the next generation of computing.

For Reilly, the moment feels similar to earlier technological turning points.

In the 19th century, new discoveries in thermodynamics helped drive the development of steam engines and the Industrial Revolution. In the 20th century, advances in electromagnetism led to radio, television and eventually the internet.

Quantum physics, he suggests, could represent the next chapter in that story.

“Today we have, as a society, in our hands new physics that we’re just beginning to figure out what to do with,” Reilly said.

“But I think it’s an exciting time to be alive and watch what happens over the coming decades.”