Americans have a lot of financial regrets—in fact, 75 percent are sorry they didn’t do better with their money.

But unsurprisingly enough, the older they get, the more the biggest of those regrets is not saving enough for retirement.

According to a new Bankrate study, not saving for retirement early enough was at the top of the list for people 30 years old and up—but the older they were, the more of them regretted it.

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Seventeen percent of those aged 30–49 had this regret, but among those 50–64, that rose to 24 percent; among senior citizens, 27 percent wished they’d started saving for retirement earlier.

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The Bankrate.com Financial Security Index actually reached its highest reading since February 2015, and second-highest reading ever, 104.7, but that doesn’t mean people are completely happy with where they are financially. In fact, their comfort level with how much they’ve managed to save has actually fallen over the past year.

But 31 percent say their net worth is higher now than it was a year ago, compared with 13 percent who say it’s lower.

Still, plenty of respondents have regrets, even if they’re not strictly about retirement savings. Nine percent are sorry they took on so much credit card debt; 8 percent regret not saving enough for their kids’ education and 9 percent are regretting those big student loan balances. Also unsurprising is the fact that regrets about student loan debt are dominated by millennials, with 24 percent of adults under the age of 30 naming it as their biggest financial regret.

Emergency savings—or, rather, the lack thereof—are also a big regret, with the lack of an emergency fund the biggest regret for 13 percent of respondents and the second biggest regret overall in the study. Interestingly, the two groups who feel it most are millennials—those under 30—at 21 percent and those between the ages of 50–64, at 13 percent.

Instant Insights /

Biggest regret for age 30 and older: Failure to save for retirement

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