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The Top Five Regrets of Older Retirees

And how to avoid them

Karen Banes
The Partnered Pen
5 min readDec 21, 2024

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Photo by Hector Reyes on Unsplash

A viral video from My Retired Life recently highlighted the top five regrets of an admittedly tiny sample of retirees in their 70s and 80s.

In spite of the small sample and unscientific nature of the results, few of the octogenarian and nonagenarians I know would argue with the overall tone of the video. And yes I know a fair few. I’m a carer for my 90-year-old mother, and closely involved with her same-age friendship group.

Yet many of these regrets are avoidable, so let’s take a look at them, and what the workarounds might be.

Retiring too late

This is an interesting one for a couple of reasons. Older retirees wish they retired sooner. However:

This is one that really needs to be put in context. It makes sense that many older retirees who worked traditional jobs and retired at 65 have regrets. An earlier retirement would have allowed them to enjoy the leisure and travel opportunities retirement brings at a…

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The Partnered Pen
The Partnered Pen

Published in The Partnered Pen

MPP friends writing about life, love, and everything else in between together.

Karen Banes
Karen Banes

Written by Karen Banes

Freelance writer sharing thoughts on life, society, creativity, and productivity. https://changetheworldwithwords.substack.com

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