If you asked most people whether they’ll be able to afford to retire, a lot of them would say no.
It’s an understandable reaction. House prices feel out of reach, the news cycle is relentless, and it’s easy to slip into thinking, “what’s the point in saving when the future looks this uncertain?”
That mindset even has a name now: doom spending. It’s when people spend money today because they’ve quietly given up on tomorrow. “I’ll never retire anyway, so I might as well enjoy it now.”
That belief isn’t really about money. It’s about time. And once you understand how time works in your favour, retirement starts to look a lot more achievable than it feels.
The future has always looked uncertain
Every generation has had a reason to believe things were about to fall apart. Wars, recessions, inflation and political upheaval: none of it is new. And yet, people who kept investing through all of it have generally been rewarded for staying the course.
That’s not blind optimism. It’s just what tends to happen when you give money time to grow, rather than reacting to whatever’s dominating the headlines this month.
None of this means you shouldn’t enjoy your money now. A coffee, a holiday or even the occasional luxury: none of that is the problem. The real question is whether you’re spending intentionally or emotionally. One tends to lead to enjoyment. The other tends to lead to regret, especially when it quietly crowds out saving for a future you’ve decided isn’t coming.
Why time matters more than the amount
Here’s a simple way to picture how time works in your favour: the Rule of 72.
It’s a quick way to estimate how long it takes money to double. You divide 72 by the annual growth rate. If your money grows at around 7% a year, it roughly doubles every 10 years.
Now apply that to something familiar: a single pension contribution, perhaps topped up by your employer and a bit of tax relief. Say it comes to £1,000. Left to grow at 7% a year, that £1,000 could become:
- £2,000 after around 10 years
- £4,000 after around 20 years
- £8,000 after around 30 years
That’s from one contribution, made once.
Now picture doing that every year, not just once. If you’re paying £1,000 a month into a pension, that’s £12,000 a year. Using the same principle, those contributions from a single year could represent something in the region of £96,000 by the time you reach 30 years down the line. Add in every other year on top of that, and the numbers start to look genuinely life-changing.
The magic isn’t the returns: it’s the patience
None of this happens quickly, and that’s exactly why it’s easy to lose faith in it. Investing rarely feels exciting in year one or year five. Most people overestimate what can happen in twelve months and badly underestimate what can happen over thirty years.
But that’s really the whole point. The growth isn’t the clever part; it’s just maths doing what maths does. The clever part is giving it enough time to work, instead of pulling the plug early because the future feels uncertain or because today’s spending feels more rewarding than tomorrow’s freedom.
So, is retirement affordable?
Probably more than it feels like right now.
You don’t need a perfect economy, a guaranteed pay rise or certainty about the world to make progress. You need consistency, a reasonable amount of patience and a willingness to let your contributions sit and grow rather than reacting to short-term noise.
Doom spending trades that future freedom for something fleeting today. Staying invested, even in small, steady amounts, trades a bit of short-term comfort for a future that’s genuinely within reach.
The world will keep giving you reasons to worry. It always has. The question worth asking isn’t “will things get better?” It’s “am I giving my money enough time to work?”
Want to know what your retirement could really look like?
That is where good financial planning can make the future feel less abstract. Using sophisticated cash flow modelling tools, we can help map out what you want from the years ahead, test different scenarios and show what may need to happen to make your plans feel affordable and achievable.
It is not about predicting the future perfectly. It is about giving your money, your goals and your choices a clearer direction.
Jack Jones, Independent Financial Adviser – DipPFS
Speak to us to start building a plan around the retirement you want. Get in contact with our advisers
* Reference
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_72
