Saving money is tough. So it’s no surprise that we come up with all sorts of reasons we just can’t save as much as we should. But are these legitimate excuses, or rationalizations? To see, I checked out the section of BlackRock’s 2014 U.S. Investor Pulse Survey that deals with reasons people find it difficult to save scrutiny.

When BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, polled a representative sample of 4,000 Americans earlier this year as part of its second annual look into financial behavior and retirement readiness, the findings weren’t exactly a revelation. Pre-retirees on average have accumulated a nest egg large enough to generate only about 15% of their desired retirement income, and even affluent pre-retirees (those with investable assets of $250,000 or more) came up short by roughly 50%.

Clearly, people just aren’t saving enough to give themselves a solid shot at a secure retirement.

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To get at the question of why, the BlackRock survey queried people about a variety of financial obstacles that can interfere with building a retirement nest egg. Below are the three impediments that were cited most often, ranked by the percentage of respondents who identified each and followed by my advice on how to bolster your saving efforts.

1. “I don’t earn enough.” (47%)

There are some people whose incomes, unfortunately, are so low that every cent goes to living expenses, leaving nothing to save. And it’s also true that earning a higher salary, in theory at least, may be able to give you more wiggle room in your budget, making it easier to save.

But once you’re beyond the “scraping by” stage, the level of your income isn’t the deciding issue when it comes to saving. Witness the fact that 21% of affluent investors queried for the BlackRock survey also claimed that not earning enough made it hard for them to save. So for most of us, saving comes down to a choice: how much of our income we’re willing to set aside for a distant tomorrow vs. how much we prefer to spend on ourselves today. Given that we’re largely hard-wired for immediate gratification, all too often we go with spending over saving.

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So how can we tilt the odds more in savings’ favor? One way is actively seek out opportunities to save. But a more effective strategy is to put your savings on autopilot by committing, say, 10% to 15% of your salary to a 401(k) or automatic investing plan. That way, you won’t have to constantly make a conscious decision to save, which, alas, too often ends up being a decision not to save.

2. “The cost of living is too high.” (46%)

The problem with this statement is that implies that the cost of living is a given, a financial fact of life over which we have absolutely no control. But this isn’t quite true.

Granted, we don’t have the power to set the prices for houses, cars, utilities, food and other goods and services. But we do have considerable maneuvering room when it comes how much we spend on many of these things. We can choose to live in a modest house or in a less expensive part of town (or, for that matter, a city with lower living expenses). We can drive an economy car rather than a Statusmobile. And we can certainly cut the percentage of our budget that goes toward food and entertainment by eating out less often or being more creative about how we spend our leisure time.

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In fact, if you follow my suggestion above and allocate 10% to 15% of your income to saving right off the top, you’ll effectively force yourself to make these sorts of lifestyle compromises, as one way or another you’ll have to make due with the 85% or 90% of income you have left after your savings have been automatically deducted from your paycheck.

3. “I have unplanned expenses.” (33%)

This isn’t a bogus excuse. But let’s be realistic. We all know that life doesn’t unfold as predictably as a spreadsheet. So unexpected bills always have and always will be a part of financial life. So while we may not know exactly what these expenses will be or when they’ll appear, we know that some outlay we haven’t planned for—home and auto repairs, health-care costs, whatever—will arise at some point in the future.

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If anything that fact should give us even more motivation to save. Why? Because creating a financial cushion can help us better absorb the unanticipated expenses we know will pop up sooner or later (usually sooner, it seems) and make it less likely that these unwelcome demands on our budget will wreak financial chaos.

I certainly don’t want to underestimate these and other obstacles most people face when it comes to saving for retirement. They can be daunting, and overcoming them can require real sacrifice.

But unless you’re okay with having your Social Security benefits determining your standard of living or you don’t mind running out of money before you run out of time, it’s important to find a way to rise to the challenge.  (11/3/14)

Walter Updegrave is the editor of RealDealRetirement.com. If you have a question on retirement or investing that you would like Walter to answer online, send it to him at walter@realdealretirement.com.