A 1% or 2% investment fee can sound like a rounding error, but on $500,000 in savings it can mean $5,000 to $10,000 a year, according to Kendall Meade, a financial planner at SoFi quoted by GOBankingRates. That is one of several first-year retirement slip-ups that planners keep returning to.
The first twelve months after leaving work set the tone for everything that follows, because the paychecks stop and the withdrawals begin. Planners quoted by GOBankingRates name the same handful of money moves again and again, and a June 2026 FinanceBuzz list echoes several of them. Here are 7 of them, with what the experts say about each.
Relocating Before Trying the Place
Carl Holubowich, a certified financial planner, advises against moving impulsively to a vacation spot. A move can mean losing nearby family and friends, struggling to find health care providers and paying moving costs. New retirees describe plenty of other first-year surprises, gathered in a list of things new retirees say nobody warned them about.
His suggestion is to stay for extended periods in different seasons first. Visiting somewhere for one to two weeks, he says, is a lot different from living there year-round. Trip planning mistakes are the focus of frenzhub’s list of travel blunders that turn a vacation stressful.
Moving Everything to Cash
Holubowich calls becoming extremely conservative at retirement a real mistake. He says that advice worked when retirees lived only a few years after leaving work, but longer lifespans mean a portfolio now has to last decades.
Motley Fool Money’s Jake FitzGerald makes the same case in a 2025 article: money that is not growing loses purchasing power to inflation. At 3% inflation, he writes, living costs could double over a 25-year retirement. Older generations built habits for shorter retirements, a theme in frenzhub’s roundup of boomer habits making a comeback.
Claiming Social Security on Day One
Holubowich tells GOBankingRates that claiming Social Security is not automatic and the decision is more complex than many people realize. He notes that delaying benefits, up to age 70, may increase lifetime benefits for some retirees.
The numbers behind that point are specific. FitzGerald writes that claiming at 62 permanently reduces monthly benefits by as much as 30% compared with full retirement age, and that benefits grow roughly 8% a year until 70. FinanceBuzz puts the age-70 payout at 129.3% of the full benefit for people born in 1960 or later, and notes that the best claiming age depends on other income. What older Americans say they would do differently with money is laid out in a summary of a money regrets survey.
Retiring Without an Income-and-Expense Plan
Holubowich calls entering retirement without a plan the biggest mistake, warning that it can lead to overspending and then cutting back later. Steve Sexton, CEO of Sexton Advisory Group, agrees that failing to plan is a common cause of retiree money trouble.
Sexton says a financial plan should be in place at least five years before retiring. Retirees also describe less obvious costs of leaving work, covered in a look at the quiet losses retirees rarely discuss.
Overspending Early on Trips and Remodels
Sexton says many people spend heavily in their first year on vacations, home remodels and other purchases deferred for years. His fix is an expense budget that fits a retiree’s finances. FinanceBuzz reports the same pattern, noting that spending on travel and shopping peaks right after retirement, which can shrink the savings needed later.
Trip costs are a common surprise, and frenzhub’s breakdown of hidden cruise costs shows how quickly extras add up. Remodels are a classic budget buster too, which is why frenzhub’s kitchen remodel ideas on a shoestring budget may help a plan hold. Retirement hindsight is the subject of a list of retirement regrets many people wish they had avoided.
Taking On Too Much Risk
Sexton says investing too conservatively is unwise, but so is being too aggressive. He recommends keeping part of a portfolio generating income, so withdrawals do not depend only on selling investments.
FinanceBuzz warns about the same trap from another angle: selling during a downturn can lock in losses a portfolio may not recover from, and many financial experts suggest an emergency fund of one to two years of expenses to avoid that.
Paying High Investment Fees
Meade says fees grow more costly as a balance grows. A fee of 1% or 2% may seem small, she tells GOBankingRates, but on $500,000 saved it works out to $5,000 to $10,000 a year. She suggests looking at lower-cost investing alternatives.
Fees are easy to miss because they come out of the account quietly rather than arriving as a bill, which is why they earn a spot on the first-year list.
The advice across the sources is steady and unglamorous: slow down, run the numbers and make the big moves one at a time. GOBankingRates updated its list in October 2023, but the planners’ warnings are not tied to a date.
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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
Image: Ken Teegardin – CC BY-SA 2.0/Wikimedia Commons
