Most retirement plans look fine on paper in the early years. Spending feels manageable. The markets may be cooperating. Everything seems okay.
But retirement experts say the real trouble usually starts quietly, long before anything looks like a crisis. Here are six warning signs they see most often, and what each one can cost you down the road.
1. Your Withdrawals Are Creeping Too High
Pulling out a little extra here and there feels harmless. But Linda R. Jensen, a financial and wealth advisor with Heart Financial Group, says it becomes a red flag when your spending consistently exceeds your income and withdrawals climb above 5% to 6% of your savings.
Steve Sexton, retirement planning expert and CEO of Sexton Advisory Group, puts it bluntly. If you are retiring into a down market and drawing too heavily, he says, “you’re accelerating the depletion in a way that’s very hard to recover from. The math is unforgiving.”
2. Your Plan Only Works If Everything Goes Perfectly
Jensen says a plan built around ideal market conditions and zero surprises is fragile by design. Inflation, taxes, and unexpected expenses are not rare events, they happen to almost everyone.
Sexton is direct about what that means: “You don’t have a plan; you have an assumption.”
3. You Are Not Sure What You Actually Spend
Scott Schuebel, financial advisor and CEO of Statera Advisors, says most people underestimate their real spending. Even being slightly off can add up to a very large gap over thirty years once you factor in inflation.
Sexton puts a number on it. If you draw just $500 more per month than you planned, that is $6,000 a year. Over 25 years, he says, “you could be looking at $300,000 to $400,000 in shortfall.”
4. Healthcare Costs Are Not in the Plan
Sexton calls healthcare “the single biggest wildcard in retirement planning” and one of the most underestimated. He points to out-of-pocket costs, dental, vision, hearing, and long-term care as expenses that Medicare does not fully cover.
“I’ve seen that one factor alone blow up what otherwise looked like a solid plan,” he said.
5. You Are Forgetting the Costs That Do Not Show Up Monthly
Schuebel calls them “the one-offs”, a new roof, a car breakdown, a major repair. They do not appear in a monthly budget, but they hit hard when they arrive.
Sexton adds another cost that rarely makes it into retirement plans: supporting adult children financially. He says it is “almost never factored into the original retirement budget.” Jensen also notes that retirees consistently underestimate how much of their retirement income is taxable, which reduces what they actually take home.
6. You Set the Plan Once and Never Looked Back
A retirement plan is not a one-time document. Jensen recommends running regular scenarios, testing what happens if inflation rises, markets drop, you live longer than expected, or a healthcare need emerges.
Schuebel says this kind of review should happen every year to make sure your spending is sustainable over the long run.
The encouraging news is this: the earlier you spot these signs, the more room you have to adjust. Small corrections made now are far easier than big ones made later.