Why a Pension and a Healthy Savings Account Still Don't Feel Like Enough

​Note: The examples and case studies in this article are hypothetical but represent real situations I have encountered in my practice working with Washington State public employees.

There’s a pattern I keep seeing, and it’s become one of the more interesting things about this work.
Someone comes in with a PERS 2 or TRS 2 or LEOFF 2 pension nearly locked in, a solid DCP account they’ve been building for years, Social Security waiting in the wings, and no debt. By every measurable standard, they’re in good shape.

And then they mention they’ve been losing sleep over a market headline.

Take someone like Diane, a hypothetical but very realistic example. She’s a school administrator with 27 years in, planning to retire at 58. Her pension will cover her core monthly expenses. Her DCP account has grown steadily. She has no mortgage left to worry about.

And she’s still anxious.

When I ask what’s bothering her, it almost always comes down to the same question: “Why doesn’t this feel like enough?”

That gap between having enough and feeling like you have enough is one of the most underdiscussed problems in retirement planning. And recent research helps explain why it exists, and what actually closes it.

It’s not just you

The Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center found that roughly 60 percent of American adults report feeling financially anxious.1 And a notable share of those people aren’t struggling financially. They’re people who, by most measures, are doing fine.

As a Wall Street Journal piece put it, even wealthy retirees fear outliving their money.2 The anxiety isn’t really about the account balance. It’s about something else.

Fidelity’s 2026 State of Retirement Planning Study sheds some light on what that something else actually is. Among Americans surveyed, those who had a written financial plan were more than twice as likely to feel confident about retirement as those without one. 83 percent confident versus 38 percent.3

Same economy. Same Social Security rules. The plan was the differentiator.

So what does that actually mean? I’d break it down into four things I consistently see in people who feel genuinely secure heading into retirement. Not one of the four is about the size of their account.

Pillar 1: A real plan, written down

This sounds almost too obvious. But there’s a reason it matters more than people expect.

Retirement has a lot of moving parts. Pension income. DCP withdrawals and timing. Social Security decisions. The healthcare gap between early retirement and Medicare at 65. Tax brackets shifting year to year as income sources change. That’s a lot to carry around in your head.

When all of it lives in your head, every market drop and every scary news article triggers a new wave of “what if.” There’s nothing to anchor to.

A written plan does something your account balance can’t. It gives your brain a place to put the uncertainty. It pre-answers the questions: Where is income coming from? What changes if markets fall? What’s the healthcare plan from 58 until Medicare kicks in at 65?

The Schwab Modern Wealth Survey found that only about 36 percent of Americans have a written financial plan. But among those who do, 96 percent say they feel confident they’ll reach their goals.4

Clarity is the antidote to anxiety. The plan creates the clarity.

Pillar 2: Knowing your actual numbers

Having a plan matters. But a plan without real numbers is just an outline.

Research from the FINRA Investor Education Foundation found that fewer than half of pre-retirement workers have actually estimated how much monthly income they’ll need, how much to withdraw from their portfolio each year, or what their healthcare costs are likely to be.1

Fewer than half. Right before the most important financial transition of their lives.

For Diane, this is where the real work happens. Her pension covers the baseline, but she needs to know the gap. What does her actual monthly spending look like? What does her DCP need to contribute? And what does healthcare cost from 58 until she qualifies for Medicare?

Fidelity estimates that a 65-year-old retiring today can expect to spend an average of $172,000 on healthcare throughout retirement, and that doesn’t include long-term care.5 For someone like Diane who retires at 58 and bridges PEBB coverage for several years before Medicare, that number starts earlier and runs longer.

In someone’s head, that blurs into one big source of dread. In a written plan with actual numbers attached, it becomes a series of solvable problems.

Pillar 3: Knowing what you’re retiring to

This is the one that tends to catch people off guard.

A well-built plan can tell you whether the numbers work. It can show you how much you can spend, where income comes from, and what happens if markets or healthcare surprise you.

What it can’t tell you is what your life will feel like when work is no longer at the center of it.

I’ve seen this pattern enough times in my work with public employees that it’s become something I bring up proactively. Someone retires with a full pension, solid savings, and a farewell party. Everything looks fine on paper. But they hadn’t thought through what a regular Tuesday in January looks like. Not a vacation. An ordinary day.

Who are you with? What are you working on? What gets you out of bed?

For people who spent 25 or 30 years in public service, teaching, or law enforcement, the job is often bound up in their sense of purpose and community. The pension solves the income problem. It doesn’t solve the identity problem.
Fidelity’s 2026 study found that 6 in 10 Americans now plan to transition gradually into retirement rather than stopping all at once.3 That path is worth designing intentionally. If the question “what am I retiring to?” feels hard to answer, that’s useful information. It tells you where there’s more planning to do.

Pillar 4: A second set of eyes

I’ll be upfront: this one is awkward to write, because I’m a financial advisor making the case that people should work with a financial advisor. Make of that what you will.

But Fidelity’s research found that people who work regularly with a financial professional report meaningfully lower worry in retirement.3 And the reason isn’t investment selection or tax strategy. It’s that when markets fall and the headlines turn ugly, you’re not alone with the question of what it means for your specific situation.
Schroders’ 2025 retirement survey found that 62 percent of already-retired Americans had no idea how long their savings would last.6 They crossed the finish line and were still flying blind.

Meanwhile, 90 percent of Americans say planning is still necessary after you retire.3 Yet most retirees are doing it without one.

The second set of eyes matters most not when things are going well, but when something changes and you need to know what it actually means for you.

Where this leaves Diane

Back to our hypothetical school administrator. Her pension is a genuine advantage. It’s the income floor that most Americans don’t have. It creates flexibility and stability that changes the whole picture.

But the pension alone doesn’t close the gap between having enough and feeling like you have enough.

What closes that gap is being able to see the whole picture. Income, taxes, healthcare, spending, and the life she’s retiring into, all in one place, modeled out and updated as things change.

The anxiety lives in the gap between what you have and what you can see. A plan is how you close it.

Sources
1. FINRA Investor Education Foundation. “Financial Anxiety and Stress Among U.S. Adults.” Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center. https://gflec.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Financial-Anxiety-and-Stress-Issue-Brief-1.pdf
2. The Wall Street Journal. “Even Rich Retirees Fear Outliving Their Money.” https://www.wsj.com/personal-finance/retirement/retirement-spending-longer-life-savings-4b511053
3. Fidelity Investments. “Fidelity Investments Study: 72% of Americans Say They Will Retire on Their Own Terms as They Embrace New Approaches to Retirement Planning.” 2026. https://newsroom.fidelity.com/pressreleases/fidelity-investments--study--72--of-americans-say-they-will-retire-on-their-own-terms-as-they-embrac/s/609fbcb7-3ea5-4773-a300-0659da881d2a
4. Charles Schwab. “Modern Wealth Survey 2025.” https://content.schwab.com/web/retail/public/about-schwab/schwab-modern-wealth-survey-2025-wave2-findings.pdf
5. Fidelity Investments. “Fidelity Investments Releases 2025 Retiree Health Care Cost Estimate.” https://newsroom.fidelity.com/pressreleases/fidelity-investments--releases-2025-retiree-health-care-cost-estimate--a-timely-reminder-for-all-gen/s/3c62e988-12e2-4dc8-afb4-f44b06c6d52e
6. Schroders. “Schroders Retirement Study Finds Inflation Taking Toll on Retirees.” 2025. https://www.schroders.com/en-us/us/intermediary/media-center/schroders-retirement-study-finds-inflation-taking-toll-on-retirees/

-Seth Deal