Like self-improvement books, the purpose of pension adequacy surveys is to make us feel lousy about ourselves.
Lousy and scared: We haven’t saved enough because we’re myopic and lack self-control. We don’t have a retirement plan, and it’s getting late. That next avocado toast may deny our future selves a pair of reading glasses.
And the nagging chases us right into our graves. At the back of our minds, there's always the guilt that we should be leaving something — actually, a lot — to our children. Yet, after you throw in the bequest motive, the avocado toast is truly toast. So perhaps we shouldn’t bother having kids?