Half of U.S. households can’t maintain their pre-retirement standard of living throughout retirement. A new study¹ looks at the experience and some advice from retirees to achieve a more secure and financially secure retirement.

• Save more. As people live longer, more retirees are worried about outliving their money. Nonetheless, the average retiree has $177,787 in retirement funds, only 39% of the recommended savings, despite expecting to have expenses for 20 more years. Two-thirds of retirees have less than $50,000 in retirement funds.

• Retire with less debt. Retirees more than doubled their debt in 2020 and have accumulated an additional $9,779 in debt on average. Non-retirees, on the other hand, accumulated an additional $5,035, only increasing their debt by 13%. 60% of retirees said they struggle to pay for necessities and bills, particularly medical bills, groceries, and credit card payments.

• Be prepared for early retirement. 59% of retirees retired earlier than planned. Although an early retirement sounds ideal on the surface, only 3% retired early because they had additional wealth, while the overwhelming majority were forced into retirement because of health issues (65%) or job loss (22%) or because they had to care for a family member (10%).

• Become a more savvy investor. Only 35% of retirees think they prepared adequately for retirement, and 1 in 4 are worried they’ll outlive their retirement savings. The majority (56%) said they waited too long to start saving for retirement, likely because they didn’t really understand what they should have been doing. About 63% said they wish they better understood savings and investments when they were working.