There is little doubt that the pandemic, followed by the cost of living crisis, has turned retirement planning on its ahead.

As Scottish poet Robert Burns once wrote: “The best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft a-gley.”

It is an often quoted saying about the fact that no matter how much planning you do, things can and will go wrong. And they did.

Many pension plans made five or 10 years ago have come badly unstuck.

In the case of pension savers, 3m times unstuck as we now know. That’s the number of people estimated to have returned to work after being previously retired. The so-called 'unretirees.'

Some were no doubt enjoying a relaxed retirement with a bit of gardening, perhaps some golf and a few holidays when they began to see their pensions spending power dwindling fast as prices soared, according to a study for Legal & General.

Apart from L&G, there have been several studies and research projects recently suggesting that many people who retired pre-pandemic have gone back to work, at least temporarily. Some were bored or just wanted the stimulation of work but most were simply running out of money for daily living.

I suspect for many, as their pension spending power dwindled, it was a case of looking for a part-time job to top up their pensions income and the research seems to back that up.

Some have portrayed this as a negative aspect of life post pandemic, and post the inflation bubble, but I see it only as positive. Retirees saw their income going less and less far and did something about it. Good for them. The taxman will be glad of the extra revenue too.

Financial Planners have been pretty sanguine about all of this. Relatively few have owned up to clients facing pension problems but the crisis is not planners' fault. No amount of planning, as the Robert Burns quote suggests, could foresee all the events which happened. The circumstances were extreme.

I would imagine there is also a big gap between pension savers with Financial Planners who could get advice on ‘fixing’ their financial plan and those people without an adviser who had to fend for themselves. Perhaps some of these were ones who took the tax free cash and put it in a deposit account paying 2% when inflation was over 11% or just spent it on a holiday. Either way millions clearly under-estimated their retirement income needs.

Of course, it’s unfair to label people hit by financial turmoil as guilty of ignoring reality or failing to plan properly and at least many have responded to changed circumstances.

It’s a reminder, however, that stress testing any plan is key to its success. Without stress testing a financial plan is just wishful thinking.

From experience, we now know that pension savers need to factor in more ‘shocks’ to ensure they are ready for almost anything. What we can say is that the last few years have been a huge learning curve for planners, advisers and clients and that will go on.

I'm on record as saying that a hard stop to working life is probably a bad idea but that's another topic I'll turn to later. 

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Kevin O’Donnell is editor of Financial Planning Today and a journalist with 40 years of experience in finance, business and mainstream news. This topical comment on the Financial Planning news appears most weeks, usually on Fridays but occasionally other days.  Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Follow @FPT_Kevin >Top Tip: Follow Financial Planning Today on Twitter / X @_FPToday for breaking news and key updates