Harford County's Jeff Judge in Barron's: Why a near-perfect retirement score can be bad news

By Jeff Judge, CFP®, AEP®, ChFC®, CLU®, Managing Partner, Chesapeake Financial Planners, Forest Hill, MD.

Most people think a retirement score is like a report card: higher is always better. When Barron's asked me about this, I told them the opposite is often true. A near-perfect score usually means someone is sitting on money they've already earned the right to spend.

Here's the tool behind the number. Planners run a retirement plan through a stress test that plays out a thousand different market and inflation scenarios, then hand back a percentage: the odds the plan holds up. Chasing that number to the high 90s or 100% sounds responsible. In practice, it often means years of unnecessary belt-tightening.

I see this a lot with families in Fallston and retirees around Aberdeen who did everything right: saved aggressively, avoided debt, retired on schedule. Then they keep living like they're still saving, because the score told them to. The same pattern shows up with commuters heading into Towson who are still a few years out and already anxious about the number they'll be judged against.

The real question isn't how high your score is. It's whether you have a plan for the years the market doesn't cooperate: some flexibility on spending, maybe a bit more part-time income, options you've thought through before you need them. A plan built for the rough years beats a perfect score with no plan every time.

This piece builds on "Why a 'B-Plus' on This Retirement Test Is the Secret to a Better Life After 65," in Barron's (September 2026).

Jeff Judge, CFP®, AEP®, ChFC®, CLU®, is Managing Partner at Chesapeake Financial Planners in Forest Hill, MD. Book an intro call.