Travel Outranks the Kids on Gen X Retirement Planning Priority List

More Generation X workers are thinking about how they’ll pay for airfare and hotels when they retire than about budgeting for the support of their parents or children.

When Prudential Financial organized a recent online survey of 2,000 U.S. workers ages 43 through 48, only 12% of the survey participants said they had factored in the cost of supporting their children. Barely 4% were expecting to support their parents.

Budgeting for fun was more common: 41% had thought about the cost of post-retirement leisure, and 40% had thought about the cost of travel.

Budgeting for support for parents or children ranked below a dazed look: 15% of the participants admitted, “I haven’t thought about retirement expenses yet,”

What It Means

The Gen X workers’ retirement budgeting priorities might seem strange, given that 35% of the participants reported having less than $10,000 in retirement savings, but the survey participants’ thinking does reflect how U.S. retirees live today.

The Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies reported in 2018 that only 13% of the retirees surveyed then were supporting relatives other than their spouses or partners, and about 39% said they were spending their time traveling.