Austin Meyer
- Misty Miller, 65, regretted retiring early because she thought she was well off.
- Miller found retirement isolating and financially challenging, so she returned to work.
- This story is part of an ongoing series on older Americans' regrets.
Misty Miller submitted her retirement paperwork seven years ago with over $500,000 saved. A week later, she asked for her job back.
Miller, 65, was a legal secretary in the private sector before working her way up to become a staff services manager for the California Housing Finance Agency. She paid off her mortgage and put as much money as possible into her 401(k). When she was in her late 50s, she determined she could retire early and live off her over $3,000 monthly pension checks.
However, she said retirement was "the biggest mistake" of her life. She said she overspent, and work gave her social connections and a purpose that she missed. She returned to work shortly after.
"I'm just terrified that within two or three years into retirement, I'll be broke again, that my money won't last, and I'm going to live until 100 years old," Miller said. "I lived through spiraling inflation in the 1970s. I'm just terrified of inflation."
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Miller is one of more than 3,800 older Americans between the ages of 48 and 96 who have shared their biggest life regrets with Business Insider since September. Common regrets include not saving enough for retirement, taking Social Security too early, not prioritizing education, or not preparing financially for an unexpected medical diagnosis.
Living frugally and working hard
Miller was born to upper-middle-class parents, and her father ran a law practice, she said. Her parents wanted her to major in business in college and become a CPA, though she wanted to become a writer. She pursued an English degree and, after college, lived paycheck to paycheck for a few years while working miscellaneous part-time jobs. She took out about $4,100 in student loans, which she paid off by the time she was 28.
Misty Miller
She worked as a legal secretary for 11 years and was a claims-litigation paralegal for an insurance company, working as many as 60 hours a week. She wanted the more regular hours and benefits that can come with a public-sector job. She was hired by the California Housing Finance Agency, where she was promoted three times.
While working, Miller set aside much of her paycheck for retirement. After years of frugal living, she had enough money to buy a house in Sacramento for $93,500 in 1990; 28 years later, she sold it for about $350,000. She also began investing seriously in the stock market in the 1990s — something she wishes she'd started doing earlier.
By 2017, she had well over $500,000 in her retirement accounts. "This is when I thought, I am rich. I could retire," Miller said. "I also thought that I could collect a check every month from my 401(k) and be fine."
During her career, she said she was so focused on money that she missed out on family time. She said she rarely visited family or called important people in her life. She said her nieces and nephews grew up not knowing her, and she regrets not spending some of her paychecks on trips to see relatives, especially since she doesn't have children.
'House rich and cash poor'
Miller retired at 58, thinking she'd be set financially and emotionally. Before retiring, she drove a 26-year-old car, colored her own hair, and brought lunch to work every day. Miller said her finances would have been fine if she continued this frugal lifestyle into retirement. Her husband also held a high-paying job, though they kept their finances separate.
But two months after she retired in 2017, she said she started to overspend, especially on real estate. She withdrew much of her 401(k) that year to afford a $110,000 down payment on a $515,000 beach house in Sonoma County, plus $57,000 for a central heating system. She said she paid about $90,000 in taxes on that withdrawal.
She sold the Sacramento home, but Miller said she disliked the beach house because of the cold weather and wanted to move back. In 2019, she purchased a 2,000-square-foot, four-bedroom house — about twice the size of her first Sacramento home — for $488,000 in a Sacramento suburb and sold the beach house in 2020 for $720,000. However, she said the property tax on her current home is five times as high as the first one.
"I'm house rich and cash poor, and so I had to go back to work for the state," Miller said, adding she didn't speak to a financial advisor about a long-term plan. "The master plan just didn't work out for me."
Returning to the office
Miller got a job at a local newspaper by the beach house that paid $19 an hour. She looked for other employment opportunities but suspected many employers wanted to hire younger talent.
"It's challenging to get a job when you're in your 60s," Miller said. "I tried my best to look as young as possible."
In 2019, she got a job at the California Department of Consumer Affairs and then switched to the Secretary of State's office. She now works as a staff services manager at the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation.
Miller now has about $450,000 saved. Now that she's working again, she plans to invest in her Roth 401(k) and put all her money into an S&P index fund, which she won't cash out early. She also hopes to rekindle her relationships with family and prioritize her friends.
"I'm back to saving money again, and I plan to never retire," Miller said, adding she wants to keep her private health insurance instead of going on Medicare. "It was a huge mistake to just think that I was rich and spend all that money just like that."
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