1 in 3 retirees hit their 80s without touching their savings — and the 4% rule is partly to blame

You spend your whole working life hearing one thing about retirement: don't run out of money. Save hard, withdraw slowly and don't outlive your nest egg.

A lot of people end up with the opposite problem. About 1 in 3 retirees reach their mid-80s with all of their original savings intact (not counting their home) — or more, according to (1)the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) (1). They didn't spend it down. They barely touched it.

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That's underspending, and a growing number of financial advisors call it a real danger that few people plan for.

"It represents a life not lived, the vacations you didn't take because you were afraid you were going to run out of money," Marianela Collado, a certified financial planner and certified public accountant based in Plantation, Florida, (2)told CNBC (2).

The EBRI number is based on 30 years of data — from the early 1990s through 2022 — tracking how households actually used what they'd saved. And in every wealth group, a good chunk of retirees kept their money intact, or even grew it. Among those who started retirement with the most, 31% still had everything, or more, two decades later.