Even Jim Carrey Had To ‘Un-retire’ — 4 Reasons Even the Super Rich Go Broke
Written by
Andrew Lisa
Edited by
Rebekah Evans
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Outliving their money is the top financial concern for many retirees — and Jim Carrey is proof that even the wealthy can find themselves with more years than dollars.
The A-list movie star reportedly “un-retired” because his nest egg had dwindled too much, too quickly — and he’s in good company with plenty of other big shots.
According to Kiplinger, household-name celebrities like Harrison Ford, Al Pacino, Hugh Grant and Nicolas Cage admitted to un-retiring or taking roles they otherwise wouldn’t have because they needed the money later in life.
Even the super-rich can go broke if they plan poorly, overspend or make any of the other mistakes that snare so many average earners — mistakes like these.
They Underestimate Their Retirement’s Duration
Many sources and surveys — like the Guardian Life Insurance survey “The average retirement age in the U.S.” — cite the average retirement as lasting roughly 18 years — a little less for men and a little more for women.
However, the Pew Research Center estimates there were roughly 101,000 centenarians in the United States in 2024 and expects the number of people who live 100 years or longer to quadruple by 2054.
No matter how rich you are, planning for the average life span is planning to fail.
“Jim Carrey’s story is a reminder that celebrity wealth doesn’t always equal financial security and the same risk applies to everyday retirees,” said Aaron Cirksena, founder and CEO of MDRN Capital, a full-service retirement planning firm. “The best way to avoid ‘un-retiring’ is to plan for a longer life than you think you’ll have.”
They Focus on Saving and Don’t Plan To Draw Down and Spend
Whether they’re W-2 employees with five- or six-figure nest eggs or movie stars with eight- or nine-figure wealth, people tend to concentrate on growing their savings without planning for how to spend it — another pitfall that does not discriminate based on income.
“The entire retirement planning industry focuses on the accumulation stage of retirement,” said Robert R. Johnson, Ph.D., chartered financial analyst (CFA), chartered alternative investment analyst (CAIA), professor of finance at Creighton University and co-author of “The Tools and Techniques Of Investment Planning, Strategic Value Investing and Investment Banking for Dummies.” “That is, how much money one needs to retire. Very little focus is placed on the decumulation stage of retirement. That is, the spending plan once one is in retirement.”
They Don’t Stress-Test Their Retirement Plans
Cirksena said to build a flexible withdrawal strategy and stress-testing it for worst-case scenarios like market volatility, rising healthcare costs and extended lifespans — a crucial step that so many skip regardless of their wealth level.
“If your strategy only works in a perfect world, it’s not a strategy,” he said. “It’s a hope.”
It’s unclear if Carrey spent above his means, but he left show business with what average earners would consider to be all the money in the world — until his world ran out of money.
They Tap Out Too Early
Early retirement is a dream for many, but those who stop earning too soon can find themselves in the nightmare of having to un-retire later in life out of financial necessity — particularly if they had lived rich and couldn’t adjust to a downsized lifestyle.
“People often discover that their expenditures in retirement are substantially higher than expected,” Johnson said. “This problem is particularly acute with affluent retirees. Wealthy celebrities have had little need to budget in their peak earning years and it can be a shock to have to live within a budget in retirement. The same can be said for affluent business executives.”
The solution? Don’t jump the gun.
“One of the smartest moves pre-retirees can make is delaying retirement just a few years,” Cirksena said. “Those extra years of compounding and delayed withdrawals can make a huge difference.”
More From GOBankingRates
Sources
- Guardian Life Insurance, “The average retirement age in the U.S.“
- Pew Research, “U.S. centenarian population is projected to quadruple over the next 30 years.”
- Aaron Cirksena, MDRN Capital.
- Robert R. Johnson, Creighton University.
