It's not all about saving more. According to a recent study from the National Bureau of Economic Research, 59 percent of respondents regret not saving more toward retirement. Not surprising, you may say, and you'd be right. But what might surprise you is that whether they have regrets or not, the biggest obstacle to saving enough for retirement is actually having suffered one or more major life setbacks, something that they may have little or no control over. Related: 10 ways to beat financial obstacles in saving for retirement While Americans are struggling to save for retirement, battling high student debt and housing costs while trying to scrape by on low wages that don't reflect the growth in the overall economy, they face other handicaps as well—such as not having access to a retirement plan at work to begin with. Just 54 million American workers, according to the Investment Company Institute, put money into a 401(k) plan during 2015, despite the fact that Bureau of Labor Statistics data point out that 150 million were employed at the time. And that's kind of scary when you realize that by 2035, U.S. Census numbers indicate that 78 million workers will be over 65. And lots of them won't be ready for retirement. While people regret not saving more—easy to do in hindsight—it's not a big shock to hear that those with college degrees, big salaries or big inheritances from rich parents were less likely to have financial regrets in their 60s and 70s than the average Joe struggling to get by. But those major life shocks take more of a toll on people's ability to save for retirement than simple procrastination or other psychological impediments to saving—both of which make big headlines as experts advocate nudges and sometimes outright pushes to get people to save more. But, as the saying goes, you can't get blood out of a stone, and sometimes life's obstacles are a far more demotivating force to saving more than all the behavioral finance techniques in the world. That doesn't mean that people couldn't save (maybe a little) more if they wanted to, human nature being what it is, but the likelihood that managing to save enough in the teeth of those obstacles isn't high. Besides, people will always regret not doing more, whether it was within their ability to do so or not. In addition, some choices made when respondents were young made sense at the time, such as relying on pensions, Social Security and Medicare—or even long-term care policies—but have now been cast into doubt, as pension funds are increasingly underfunded, Washington rumbles about cutting social safety net programs that people have paid into all their working lives and the cost of health care has risen to the point that long-term care is a real threat to people's financial survival. Check out the slideshow above to learn 10 of the biggest obstacles to retirement saving revealed by the study—as well as the probability that each could burden its sufferer with saving regret after age 60. Read more: |

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