And then there's credit card debt, cited by 16 percent who say they regret having taken on too much of it. (Photo: Getty)
Americans have a number of regrets about their finances, as might be expected by people who haven't yet recovered from the Great Recession, work multiple jobs just to make ends meet and labor under an immense load of student loan debt.
But the one that looms largest in their minds is their failure to save sooner for retirement—and, also as might be expected, the older they are the more they have that regret. So says a Bankrate.com study that also finds that a whopping 76 percent of Americans have at least one regret regarding their finances.
And while 56 percent say their financial regrets are all about savings, when it's broken down by category, not saving early enough for retirement tops the list, with 27 percent saying that's what keeps them up at night. That's followed by underfunding their emergency fund—19 percent regret that—and not saving enough for their kids' education (10 percent cite that one).
“What's readily apparent, once again, is regrets about savings are head and shoulders above other regrets, even about debt,” Greg McBride, CFA, chief financial analyst at Bankrate.com, is quoted saying in a statement. McBride adds, “Americans are undersaved for both retirement and emergencies and are increasingly aware of it.”
That retirement savings (or lack of it) regret grows bigger as people age; a third of boomers (ages 55–73) said they were sorry they hadn't started early enough to save for retirement, with 23 percent of the Silent Generation (ages 74 and older) and 22 percent of GenX (ages 39–54) saying the same thing. Younger generations, on the other hand, were more concerned with having failed to save enough for emergencies, with 19 percent of both GenXers and millennials being most regretful.
And as might be expected, millennials' biggest regret was over their student loan balances, with 17 percent saying so—more than twice that of GenXers with student loans (7 percent) and more than three times that of boomers (4 percent).
And then, of course, there's credit card debt, cited by 16 percent who say they regret having taken on too much of it. Credit card debt can be particularly crippling, points out Ted Rossman, industry analyst at CreditCards.com, a Bankrate sister site, who is quoted in the report saying, “This is a tough one, because credit card rates are at record highs (17.73 percent, according to CreditCards.com—and that's for people with good credit).”
Rossman adds, “Many people with lesser credit are paying 20 to 25 percent on their cards. Paying these kinds of rates for any length of time is really going to hold you back financially. Credit card rates are three to five times what we typically see on mortgages, auto loans and student loans.”
And of course that means they gobble up money that could be used for other purposes—like paying off other debts and saving for retirement…
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Marlene Satter
Marlene Y. Satter has worked in and written about the financial industry for decades.
