All month on The Groundwork, we've been walking through the haunted house of financial facts. This week we hit the exit door with the final four stats, 10 through 13.

As a financial advisor in Lexington, Kentucky, I see these four come up again and again with families across Central Kentucky: underestimated healthcare costs, uncertainty about Social Security, thin emergency savings, and a growing sense that retirement planning is too complex to handle alone.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

Stat 10: Your Health Is Precious and Pricey

•      Medicare doesn't cover most medical costs in retirement. Fidelity Investments estimates a 65-year-old retiring today will need about $165,000 for out-of-pocket medical expenses over retirement, not including long-term care.

•      Healthcare costs tend to rise faster than general inflation, so the number keeps growing.

•      Know your Medicare coverage, know your gaps, and have a plan for what it will actually cost.

Stat 11: What If the Rescue Never Comes?

•      Payroll taxes coming into Social Security are increasingly falling short of benefits paid out. Without changes, that gap will eventually force benefit cuts.

•      73% of workers are concerned Social Security won't be there for them when they retire.

•      What happens depends on decisions Congress hasn't made yet. Build your retirement around what you can control, and treat Social Security as a supplement, not a foundation.

Stat 12: It's Not the Devil You Know

•      Only 25% of Americans have enough savings to cover six months of income. Three out of four are one unexpected event -- a job loss, a health crisis, a major repair -- away from real financial trouble.

•      An emergency fund isn't glamorous and doesn't compound like an investment account, but it keeps one bad month from becoming a bad decade.

Stat 13: Alone in the Dark Is No Place to Plan

•      Financial literacy is low across all demographics in the U.S., and the complexity of retirement planning -- taxes, Social Security, healthcare, investment strategy, estate planning -- is only increasing.

•      You don't have to figure it out alone. Expert guidance, or a second opinion on the plan you already have, can be the difference between a retirement that works and one that doesn't.

13 Stats. 4 Weeks. 1 Takeaway.

Some of these stats are predictable, which means they're plannable. Others you can't see coming. The way to plan for those is to create margin. When I build a plan, we assume you'll overspend and your investments will underperform, because if a plan only works when everything goes right, it's not a plan. It's a hope.

If any of these stats hit close to home, let's talk.

I help families in Lexington and across Central Kentucky build retirement plans with margin built in, so the plan still works when things don't go perfectly. Whether you're starting from scratch or want a second opinion on the plan you have, I'd love to have that conversation.