A good retirement planner is someone who can ensure that you do not feel abandoned and in a fix once you reach retirement. Additionally a good retirement planner can ensure that your retirement is an extremely smooth process where you do not feel the pinch of loss of regular income. Among the many retirement planning options like IRA's and 401(k) plans, a retirement planner should also warn clients about some of the potential errors that many people make when they start to plan their retirement. Some of these common mistakes are mentioned below. - Late start : One of the biggest mistakes that people make is a late start. While you are young, you tend to forget that there will be a time when the regular income will stop but life will not. An early start can guarantee better returns on your retirement investment. - Irregular or sporadic investments : Any retirement planner will tell you that getting out of a slumber and making some investment, is not something that can be called retirement planning. The process is a continuous one and requires re-evaluation and regular investment to ensure that current lifestyle can be maintained after retirement. - Missing out on tax free retirement plans : If your retirement planner is not up to date, he is likely to miss out on tax free investment options that are put up in the market every now and then. Getting tax deducted from your retirement savings is surely something that you would not like. - Improper allocation of assets : Retirement planners need to ensure that the funds set aside for retirement are invested in a balanced ratio of high risk, medium risk and low risk options. Heavy investment in low risk options is likely to result in less fund availability after retirement. - Missing post retirement plan : This is an extremely important aspect that most retirement planners miss out on. The retirement plan that you look for should also have a retirement plan option for the time when you have retired. Retired people also need to invest continuously to ensure that funds do not deplete.