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More Americans than ever are expected to retire this year. And some of these pre-retirees are facing challenges. 67% of those planning for retirement say that they're confident about their prospects. That's actually down from 74% last year. So, what is behind this big drop? Joining me now, we've got our very own Carrie Hannon. Carrie, why are fewer people feeling confident about retirement?

Yeah, Brad, I mean this is an interesting finding, uh, that it's from a recent Fidelity report, and it says that you know these pre-retirees are really, you know, it's sinking their confidence. And it shouldn't be surprising to to our audience here. It's they're caught off guard by rising prices. And so this has gotten them really, especially health care costs, have really have them concerned about are they able to continue to save for retirement because their day-to-day living costs have come up. Another thing in that survey that was also interesting is they looked at people who are currently retired. And these folks, seven out of ten, are actually pretty confident. That said, they, their one big niggle is that they say that their medical expenses after retirement, in retirement, are much higher than they expected. And 20% of them said they wish they had worked harder at paying down their debt from credit cards and mortgages, etc. before they retired. And you know Fidelity has a number that individuals should plan on having $165,000 post age 65 to pay for after out-of-pocket medical costs after Medicare. So that's a pretty big number and I think a lot of people don't focus on that possibility and plan for those costs for medical care.

Carrie, let's talk about credit card debt. Nearly half of older Americans aged 50 and up carry a balance on their credit card month to month according to AARP. Carrie, why are they holding this debt and how does that debt impact their abilities to save for retirement?

Yeah, Brad, this absolutely freaks me out because when this is such a dilemma because if you have credit card debt, and we're talking the average credit card rate for people who roll over debt month to month is 20%, this is a huge amount of money that they're paying in interest on these credit cards. If you're paying down these credit cards or paying off credit cards, it's so hard to set aside money for retirement, to save for retirement. And if you're 50, you've got decades to go, right? You really need to be saving. So that's a real problem and a lot of these folks, um, are relying on their credit cards to pay day-to-day living expenses. So it's not just, um, you know, it's really this impact of high inflation that's hitting them hard and they're saying costs are just going up more than I expected. So, um, this is a dilemma. And so the other thing is so we have these out-of-pocket medical costs that a lot of people are using their credit cards to pay. That is really, you know, really daunting. So, I think they also say cars are an issue and also housing, but they're putting these things on their credit cards and they're revolving the debt. So you gave that number of people having over $5,000 I believe you put that up, but there's a good chunk of people that actually have over 10,000 that they're revolving on their credit cards. And at this stage in life, you really need to take control of these debts because as we learned from the Fidelity report, this is a big regret that people have in retirement is that they retire with debt and it makes it really a struggle.

Carrie, thanks so much for breaking this down for us. Appreciate it.

Thanks.