One in three parents ‘too busy’ to plan future finances

One in five (20%), the equivalent of around 10.4 million people aged 18-802, are not planning for their financial futures because they are ‘too busy’ according to research by Standard Life..

While financial pressures are an obvious barrier to saving for retirement, with over half (52%) of those who worry they are not saving enough citing the cost of living as the main reason, new findings reveal that the demands of work, family life and wellbeing are having a substantial impact too.

The report finds that overall, 20% of respondents – equivalent to 10,378,765 people aged 18-80 – said they are simply too busy to plan for their future finances, citing their job or work (60%), family or household responsibilities (49%) and managing day-to-day finances (44%) as key reasons why.

For women, the demands of everyday life are having an even greater impact; 55% of women who say they are too busy mention household and family responsibilities compared with 44% of men, and almost half (48%) of women say managing day-to-day finances leaves them too busy to plan for retirement, compared with 40% of men.

Amongst parents with children under 18 who say they are too busy to plan for their future finances, ‘looking after children’ is the biggest competing demand, cited by 66%. This rises to 76% of mums compared with 54% of dads. The wider impact is reflected in retirement planning too – 43% of women with children under 18 say they have done no planning around how much they will need in retirement, compared with 22% of men with children under 18.

These pressures sit within a wider picture in which immediate financial demands are taking priority over longer-term planning. Managing day-to-day finances tops the list of people’s financial priorities (42%), while just 12% say pension saving is their main financial priority, down from 15% in 2025. People’s positivity about their financial situation has also been falling since 2024 (48%), to 45% in 2025, and 43% in 2026.

Financial pressures aren’t the only demands competing for people’s attention. Among those who say they are too busy to plan, 38% cite focusing on their health and wellbeing, 22% mention their social life and 15% point to TV, social media and other leisure activities.

For Gen Z, these competing demands are particularly pronounced. Around a third (34%) say they are too busy to plan for their future finances, compared with 20% overall, with health and wellbeing (34%), their social life (33%) and TV, social media and other leisure activities (22%) among the factors getting in the way. Four in ten (40%) also say they have done no planning around how much money they will need in retirement.

Despite these competing priorities, the research also shows that people have not lost sight of the importance of retirement saving. Almost two thirds (63%) of those who are not yet retired worry they are not saving enough for when they are older, rising to 71% among millennials.

While over a third (35%) of those who are not yet retired admit they have not yet thought about how much money they will need in retirement, almost half (48%) have given it some consideration and almost one in five (17%) have already undertaken a significant amount of planning.

Catherine Foot, Director of the Standard Life Centre for the Future of Retirement, said “Financial pressures are clearly a major part of the challenge people face when preparing for later life, but these findings show that money is not the only constraint. Work, caring responsibilities, family life and the demands of managing finances today are all competing for the time and headspace people need to think about tomorrow.

“That is particularly visible among parents, many of whom are balancing work and household finances with the day-to-day demands of looking after children. For younger adults, the mix of competing priorities looks different, but the underlying challenge is similar: finding the space to engage with financial decisions whose benefits may be many years away.

“This matters because concern about retirement saving remains high. The important thing is not to let being busy become a permanent barrier to planning – retirement can feel a long way off, particularly when there are more immediate demands on your time and money, but even small steps to understand what you already have and think about what you might need can make planning feel more manageable.

“As people live longer and responsibility for retirement outcomes increasingly sits with individuals, we need to think not only about whether people have enough money to save, but how easy we make it for them to plan and engage with their long-term finances. Policymakers, employers and the financial services industry all have a role to play in reducing that burden – helping people build financial resilience today while making long-term saving and retirement planning as simple and accessible as possible.”

Why do you feel too busy to plan for your financial future?

Reason	Overall	Men	Women	Parents of children under 18	Gen Z
My job/work	60%	57%	62%	61%	52%
Family or household responsibilities	49%	44%	55%	65%	35%
Managing day-to-day finances	44%	40%	48%	45%	40%
My own health and wellbeing	38%	38%	39%	33%	34%
Looking after children	32%	28%	36%	66%	15%
Social life	22%	24%	20%	16%	33%
Caring for other family members	18%	17%	19%	23%	12%
TV, social media and other leisure activities	15%	19%	11%	14%	22%