Why some retirees are happier than others

Writing in the National Post, noted financial author Christine Ibbotson offers up some ideas on why some retirees are happier than others.

She begins by asking – from the point of view of someone still working – how one might think all retirees are happy. “They don’t work or commute any more. They have no deadlines, commitments, angry bosses, or backstabbing coworkers to deal with, and they can sleep in every day,” she writes.

(On that last point, Save with SPP will add a qualifier – unless they have dogs!)

Ibbotson writes that research has found that some retirees are happier than others. And money – or at least, management of it – seems to factor into the happiness equation, she adds.

“When we looked at the financial aspects of the happiest retirees, it was not that they had more money, but more that they viewed their money as a tool for their happiness. The happier retirees had no mortgage or consumer debt. They also stayed in the homes that they purchased and paid off while they were working,” writes Ibbotson.

On the idea of staying in their original home, Ibbotson adds “many retirees who moved during the early years of retirement to ‘right size’ their life, took on home renovations, or made big purchase decisions and wound up with more debt than they bargained for; forcing them to eat into their retirement savings or carry a new mortgage that wasn’t anticipated.”

Other findings – happier retirees had “two or three” vacations a year, while the less happy had one or less, Ibbotson writes. The happy had made use of financial planners and had “three to five” sources of income funding their retirements. The happiest had multiple hobbies – “four to seven,” versus the less happy, who had “fewer than three.”

Another noteworthy discovery was that the happiest retirees were not necessarily the ones “with the most toys,” as us boomers were led to believe in the 1980s.

“Turns out the happiest retirees in the survey were not lavish spenders and seemed to be right in the middle-class with their spending especially on cars, clothing, and vacations. The unhappy retirees on the other hand were the opposite. This group had a lot more status symbol purchases and high-priced vehicles, with BMW being the most popular,” she observes.

Ibbotson sums the research up very nicely.

“Only you can make yourself happy, healthy, fit, slim, busy, wealthy, content, independent, prosperous … you get the idea,” she writes.

“So, no matter where you are, no matter what is going on right now in your life, change it and mix it up this year. Find your own happiness equation and just do it.”

Multiple income streams in retirement is a big plus, and the Saskatchewan Pension Plan can help with that. If you have a pension plan or retirement arrangement at work, that’s a big plus for you – but if not, the SPP has everything you need to create that extra income stream. They’ll take your contributions, invest them prudently and grow them, and will provide you with that extra income that helps bankroll your hobbies or vacations once work is an afterthought.

Check them out today!

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Offering a retirement program benefits employers as well as workers: study

Research carried out by the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan (HOOPP) and retirement benefits organization Common Wealth has found that offering a pension program for employees offers positive benefits for employers as well, reports Wealth Professional.

The study, titled The Business Case for Good Workplace Retirement Plans, notes that a good workplace pension plan should offer “value drivers” such as “regular automatic savings, lower fees and costs, investment discipline, fiduciary governance, and risk pooling,” the article, written by Leo Almazora, notes. As well, portability – the ability to keep the retirement program even if you change jobs – was seen as a positive feature, the article adds.

Common Wealth’s Alex Mazer states in the article that “having a plan that lets workers keep benefitting from the first five value drivers over the course of their career, even as they go from job to job and into retirement, can translate into hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional wealth accumulated over their lifetime, compared with saving for retirement on one’s own.”

Alex Mazer spoke to Save with SPP a few years ago about ways to encourage more retirement saving, and to make it automatic.

What’s interesting, the article notes, is that employers offering such programs also benefit.

“From an employer’s perspective, being able to offer a good workplace retirement plan is also a powerful tool. According to the research, having a vehicle to help them progress toward retirement is highly prized by employees, as it consistently emerged among the top benefits for recruitment or retention. Beyond that, it can also contribute greatly to improving productivity on the job,” the article reports.

“There’s a real linkage between people’s financial stress and their productivity,” Steven McCormick, senior vice president for Plan Operations at HOOPP, tells Wealth Professional. “In the research we’ve done, three quarters of employers said that any financial stress on an employee has an impact on productivity overall. I think that really makes the case for business owners to see workplace plans as an investment in their business as well as their people.”

Some business owners may see offering a pension plan as just another big expense, but McCormick says there’s a different way to look at it.

“For business owners who may have preconceived notions about the impact of putting a retirement plan in place, we’d suggest they should perhaps take another look,” McCormick states in the article. “They might not have a plan that hits all our five value drivers right off the bat, but we think it’s something to consider building toward to help their staff, their business, and society as a whole.”

This is a great look at an important issue. Let’s not overlook the fact that without a workplace pension plan, the responsibility for retirement saving becomes an individual burden. As well, those without sufficient savings for retirement may find themselves living on the spartan monthly income provided by the Canada Pension Plan, Old Age Security, and – if applicable – the Guaranteed Income Supplement.

Did you know that the Saskatchewan Pension Plan can be leveraged as a company pension plan? Contact us to find out how your company can offer SPP to its employees.

And, if you don’t have a pension program at work, perhaps the SPP can do the job for you. With SPP you get the benefit of low investment costs and pooling, and good governance. You can arrange to make regular, automatic contributions and SPP travels with you if you change jobs. Check out SPP today!

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New year, new plan to fix your finances?

Writing for the GoBankingRates blog via Yahoo! Finance, Jennifer Taylor suggests that the start of 2022 is a great time to review your personal finances.

“The new year is here and you’re ready to make serious changes to your financial situation,” she writes. “Whether you’re buried in credit card debt, haven’t started saving for retirement or don’t currently have an emergency fund, you’re committed to turning things around in 2022,” the article continues.

She raises an interesting idea, courtesy of Ryan Klippel of Optas Capital – that your budget for this year should be focused on whether or not “you were cash flow positive or negative last year.”

If you were cash flow positive – meaning you had money left over after meeting all your obligations – “great, now set a savings goal for 2022” for the extra money, the article suggests.

If, on the other hand, you were cash flow negative – meaning you have more obligations than money – “spend the time to determine what expenses were luxuries versus necessities, and trim accordingly,” the article notes.

For those of us with debts to address, states Klippel in the article, “sometimes setting smaller goals to start is better than overly ambitious ones. For example, it is much more realistic and digestible to eliminate credit card debt for one card than five.”

The rest of the article offers tips on how to turn your personal financial ship of state around.

• Save more money: Even if you could save just 10 per cent of your salary per month – leaving you 90 per cent to spend – you’d have a full year’s salary in the bank after 10 years, the article suggests.
• Retirement savings: Pay your future self first, the article suggests, and make retirement savings a priority, even over saving for kids’ education. Often, people want to do more things in retirement than they have done in their working lives, so more retirement income is positive, the article adds.
• Don’t let money control your life: It’s easy to get into the cycle of living paycheque to paycheque, but the article advises that “gratification comes when you take control of your life and the power you get when you wake up and realize you have money in the bank.”

Other great ideas suggested in the article include building up your emergency fund, changing your spending habits (via reflecting on how you spend and having a plan to change your ways), and paying your credit card in full each month.

This last one is particularly good advice. There are a lot of us who can’t pay off credit card balances. That basically means we are “buying” things that we won’t pay for in full for years, all while getting charged double digit interest. Often, one ends up in a “pay the bank first” scenario, due to rising minimum payments on credit card balances. Turning this around so that you pay the thing off in full will mean you can bid a fond farewell to all that compounding interest – and create a new pool of cash that you can put away for your future retirement years.

As we start a new year, your financial planning should for sure focus on retirement savings. The Saskatchewan Pension Plan equips you with a do-it-yourself, end to end retirement system that takes your contributions, invests them, and turns that nest egg into future retirement income. You can even get a lifetime pension through SPP’s family of annuity options. Find out how SPP can help you pre-build a secure retirement!

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Are Brits drawing down their pension savings at too great a clip?

One of the tricky parts to living off a lump sum of retirement savings is figuring out how much to take out each year.

There are many theories on what the “right” percentage to draw down is, and many experts, such as Dr. John Por who spoke to Save with SPP last year say a perfectly correct number is “unknowable,” since no one knows what future interest rates and markets will be like.

But the general rule of thumb has been that taking out four per cent per year is a “sustainable” number.

That’s why it is surprising to read the news in Professional Pensions that across the pond, 43 per cent of Brits are withdrawing eight per cent of their retirement savings annually – double that rule of thumb.

The figure comes from new research from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the U.K.

“While you may need to make occasional ad-hoc withdrawals to cover large expenses, making regular withdrawals at this level risks depleting your fund,” states senior pension analyst Helen Morrissey of Hargreaves Lansdown. “If you also experience a period of investment volatility this can further impact your fund as you have no… contributions going in to make up any losses,” she states.

The number of Brits withdrawing at an eight per cent clip jumped from 40 per cent in 2020 to 43 per cent this year.

The article suggests that the pandemic has played a part in people taking more out of their pension savings.

Meanwhile, data from the FCA shows there has been a 13 per cent drop in annuity purchases in the U.K.

This may be, reports The Telegraph because of “a deterioration in annuity rates” thanks to generally low interest rates, and the fact that drawdown “will always give you the highest income” versus an annuity.

The Telegraph article says only an annuity approach guarantees that you won’t “exhaust your pension early.” They suggest a blend of the two options – drawing down some of your money at a sustainable rate, and annuitizing the rest, to ensure that you will never run out.

Save with SPP knows of at least a couple of people who ran out of retirement savings while still relatively young. It’s likely that they didn’t understand the idea that the big pot of savings is supposed to last as long as you do. It’s tempting to be sitting on maybe a hundred thousand dollars of savings, and thinking that it’s time for new windows and doors, or (one day) a vacation, and burning through it. But you’ll miss that money when you’re 90.

The Saskatchewan Pension Plan (www.saskpension.com) allows you to annuitize some or all of your retirement savings when the day comes to put down the shovel and stop working. The SPP’s Retirement Guide outlines all the annuity options you can choose from. And if you have a spouse, the annuity option means that your spouse will receive a lifetime income from SPP should you pass away before they do. That’s the peace of mind that saving for retirement with SPP can bring. Check them out today.

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What if there never is a retirement party?

A new study from the U.K. suggests – that for an estimated one million Brits – there will be no life after work.

The study, carried out by Canada Life, is covered in a recent article in Professional Advisor. The article notes that 17.1 million Brits plan to work beyond the normal state pension age.

Why the focus on working well into retirement age?

The article says 43 per cent of those planning to work longer “consider their pension to be inadequate to retire fully.” A further 22 per cent, Professional Advisor continues, are concerned “about how long their retirement savings will last,” and 10 per cent fear that unless they continue working, they won’t be able to afford their current lifestyle.

And it’s not like people are eager to work into their late 60s and beyond, the article reports.

Thirty-four per cent of those surveyed feared a longer career at work because they are “concerned about being unable to enjoy their older age,” the article notes. Thirty-three per cent worry that working longer will “take a toll on their health,” and 27 per cent said that even though they want to work longer, “deteriorating health” will make it harder to do so.

“Digging beneath the surface, there are a variety of reasons for working beyond state pension age, or not retiring at all,” states Andrew Tully of Canada Life in the Professional Advisor article. “For some people the social side of work would be missed, but for others, financial considerations are a key driver. As an industry, we need to find ways of encouraging better engagement in long-term financial planning as a way to ensure that people are confident that they are building sufficient savings for retirement,” he states in the article.

Tully also says that the pandemic is having a big impact on people nearing retirement age. Many are “re-evaluating how they want to live and what they want to in later life.”

This article raises some important questions. Clearly, those who – as the article suggests – feel they don’t have a good enough pension, or that they will outlive their savings, don’t have much of a choice about whether to keep working. But, as the article notes, age can catch up to you and can begin to limit how much work you can take on. This would seem to be particularly true for those of us in physically demanding lines of work.

If retirement is a long way off, you have time on your side, and can take steps to avoid funding yourself with inadequate retirement savings. Be sure to join any pension arrangement your workplace offers as soon as possible, and contribute at the maximum rate if you can afford it. If you don’t have a workplace pension plan, or want to augment the one you have, check out the Saskatchewan Pension Plan. The plan can be your personal retirement system – you can contribute up to $7,000 per year towards your future retirement, and SPP will grow that money for you with professional investing at a low price.

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TFSAs – a handy tool for retirement savers and those drawing down their nest eggs

Writing in Investment Executive, Jeff Buckstein takes a look at how the Tax Free Savings Account (TFSA) can play a key role not only in saving for retirement, but in the trickier “drawdown” stage.

For starters, he writes, “many people quickly identify the registered retirement savings plan (RRSP) as a key component of successful retirement planning,” overlooking the “complementary role” the TFSA can play “in planning for and enjoying retirement.”

One interesting TFSA characteristic is that money saved within them does not – like in an RRSP – have to come from earned income. Examples of income that doesn’t qualify for an RRSP contribution would be dividends from a private corporation or business, or “a windfall, such as an inheritance,” Buckstein writes.

If you are a regular RRSP contributor who maxes out each year, any extra cash can be saved in a TFSA (up to the annual TFSA limit), he writes. As well, if you are in a company pension plan where your contributions produce a pension adjustment – which reduces how much you can contribute to an RRSP – the TFSA is a safe savings alternative, the article notes.

Quoting Tina Di Vito of Toronto-based MNP LLP, the article notes that “lower income clients who anticipate relying on Old Age Security (OAS) or the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) may be better off investing in a TFSA.”

That’s because withdrawals from a TFSA are not considered taxable income, like withdrawals from an RRSP, a registered retirement income fund (RRIF) or an annuity purchased with registered funds are. So TFSA income doesn’t impact one’s ability to qualify for OAS or GIS.

So what’s a good idea, investment-wise, for a TFSA?

The article quotes Doug Carroll of Aviso Wealth Inc. in Toronto as saying that since TFSA investments are going in to the account tax free and coming out tax free, “you probably lean a little more toward equities in there than you would in your RRSP.”

A more complex idea explored in the article is – for those with substantial TFSA savings as well as an RRSP – to draw down the TFSA income first, and try to delay touching the registered money until you have to at age 71. This strategy can reduce your taxable income over the longer term, the article explains.

Our late father-in-law used to use his TFSA as part of his RRIF withdrawal program. He’d withdraw funds as required from his RRIF, pay tax on them, and then put the after-tax income back into his TFSA to invest. This generated a regular and growing supply of tax-free income, he used to tell us with a broad grin.

Many of us semi-retired boomers didn’t get in on the TFSA, launched in 2009, until the latter years of our careers. If you are younger, and decades away from retirement, think of all the tax-free growth and income your savings could produce in the run up to your Golden Years.

If you don’t have a retirement savings program at work – or want to supplement the one you have – a great place to look is the Saskatchewan Pension Plan. This made-in-Saskatchewan success story has been helping Canadians save for more than 35 years. Check them out today.

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Inflation: a pain for many, but a plus for savers?

Writing for CBC, Don Pittis notes that the return of higher inflation will be both good and bad news for Canadians.

Observing that inflation in the U.S. is running at 6.2 per cent, and that the Bank of Canada’s Governor Tiff Macklem is predicting five per cent inflation here, Pittis writes that “if history is any guide, inflation can lead to turmoil.”

“Those effects include the pain of shrinking spending power, the prospect of labour conflict as employees struggle to get their spending power back, a potential disruption of Canada’s soaring housing market and a reconsideration for older people about how to make their money last through a long retirement,” writes Pittis.

But there can be an upside to inflation for some of us, he continues. He quotes The Intercept columnist Jon Schwarz as stating “inflation is bad for the one per cent but is good for almost everyone else.”

As an example, those saving for retirement will be pleased by higher interest rates, Pittis contends.

“It is clear that those saving for retirement may take a different view, especially as the boomer bulge exits the labour market. Even before the latest round of pandemic monetary stimulus, people contemplating a long retirement complained about a paltry return on savings. With inflation higher than the rate of interest, cautious savers are now watching with horror as their future spending power shrinks,” writes Pittis.

He notes that even as inflation ticks up, “lenders have been handing out mortgages at rates considerably less than the rate of inflation.”

Inflation, the article concludes, may lead to higher prices but also higher wages for workers; Pittis adds that any rise in the Bank of Canada rate won’t be an instant fix for inflation, but the beginning of a process that might take years.

Save with SPP can attest to some of the things Pittis points out by thinking back to the high-interest days of the ‘70s and ‘80s. He’s right to predict higher rates are a plus for savers – we recall getting Canada Savings Bonds that paid double-digit interest with zero risk. The same was true of Guaranteed Investment Certificates (GICs).

There was a positive effect on wages as well. There was federal legislation on wage and price controls that, among other things, limited wage increases to six per cent the first year, and five per cent the second. Six and Five. In the many decades that have come and gone since the old Six and Five days, it is hard to think of a time when people got routine pay raises that were that large.

So while we gripe about higher gas prices and grocery costs, and the jump in the costs of most things due to supply chain issues, this would be a good time to start stashing away a few bucks every payday for your future retirement.

A great destination for those loonies is the Saskatchewan Pension Plan. The SPP, now celebrating its 35^th year of operations, offers a balanced approach to investing. The SPP’s Balanced Fund invests 26 per cent of its assets in bonds, 7.5 per cent in mortgages and 1.5 per cent in short term investments. You can bet the plan’s investment managers are keeping an eye out for growing opportunities in the fixed income sector – and that’s good news for all of us who have chosen SPP to be a part of our long-term retirement savings plan.

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Students should take advantage of retirement saving and its tax advantages: The Varsity

We all look back fondly at our days as students, whether in regular or post-secondary school. At no time does this writer ever remember any friend or classmate talking seriously about the need to save for retirement. There were many other things to worry about, including passing courses and looking for a job.

But an article in the University of Toronto’s The Varsity newspaper says even students should be thinking about life after the jobs they are about to find.

“As a student, investing in a (registered) retirement savings plan early can prove to have long-term benefits like tax-deductible contributions,” the article begins. “This means that the amount you put into your RRSP for the year is deducted from your taxable yearly income. Further, investments are tax-deferred, which means that taxes on the growth of your investments are not paid until you withdraw the funds from your RRSP account,” the article explains.

The article makes the point that while the tax-free savings account (TFSA) allows money to grow without taxation, contributions made to it are not tax-deductible like RRSP contributions. As well – and a key point if you are thinking of the money being like a piggy bank for the future – is that withdrawing money from an RRSP is more difficult. The RRSP piggy bank is much harder to raid than a TFSA, the article explains.

“The idea of saving for retirement while having to pay outstanding debts like credit card statements or mortgages can be overwhelming,” The Varsity notes. “Everyone has a different financial scenario and students must evaluate what works best for them, even if it means only putting small amounts of money aside in their RRSP every month,” the newspaper adds.

The article also looked at the idea of starting retirement savings early.

Citing a recent study, The Varsity reports that folks in the Gen Z cohort start saving at 19; millennials at age 25 and Gen Xers at 30.

And some great news from The Varsity article is that younger people are getting the message about the importance of getting a head start on retirement savings.

“It appears that starting to save at a younger age has been a message that has trickled down across generations, since the oldest members of Gen Z are only 24 years old. Gen X and baby boomers have been found to contribute an average of 14 to 15 per cent of their income into their retirement fund, while Gen Z and millennials invest, on average, 16 per cent of their income in their retirement savings,” The Varsity reports.

Other points made in the article include the idea that as living costs continue to rise, many households “will need to continue working past the age of 65 in order to afford retirement.” Citing recent research from the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan, the Varsity notes that 67 per cent of Canadians “think that Canada will be facing a retirement crisis;” that same study found that 77 per cent of workers liked the idea of their employers offering retirement savings plans.

The Varsity article concludes by saying that if you are young, you should be asking and talking about getting an early start on retirement saving.

If your employer does offer a retirement program, be sure to join it and contribute as much as you can. If you don’t, you need a do-it-yourself retirement plan. The Saskatchewan Pension Plan provides exactly what you need to get rolling. You can contribute up to $6,600 per year to SPP, and like an RRSP, SPP contributions are tax-deductible. Check out SPP, celebrating 35 years of operations, today!

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Pandemic, spectre of inflation changing Canadians’ retirement attitudes: Fidelity

Pandemic-driven concerns over the cost of later-life healthcare, coupled with fears about the return of inflation, were key concerns identified in a recent survey conducted for Fidelity Investments Canada.

In a media release, the study, titled 2021 Fidelity Retirement Report, cited both “longstanding and emerging” factors influencing the retirement thinking of Canadians.

“Change is the big story in this year’s report. The global health crisis and the cost of goods and services going up are influencing how Canadians envision their retirement, what they value and are worried about, the timing of retirement and so much more,” states Peter Bowen, Vice President, Tax and Retirement Research, in the media release. “Another significant story is resilience. We found that Canadians who work with a professional financial advisor feel optimistic and better prepared for what’s ahead.”

These are definitely interesting times to be living through. The survey found that 71 per cent of Quebec pre-retirees retained “a positive outlook on retirement,” compared to B.C. pre-retirees, only 62 per cent of whom were optimistic about their retirement plans, the release reports.

Overall, the research found that “73 per cent of retirees and over half of pre-retirees” feel COVID-19 “has changed the way they live (expect to live) life in retirement,” the release notes.

While 60 per cent of pre-retirees “with a written financial plan” are now budgeting for retirement-related healthcare costs, only 25 per cent of pre-retirees say they have a written financial plan, the release notes. This means “there are still many Canadians who may not have considered healthcare in their plans,” the Fidelity release observes.

More than half – 56 per cent – of pre-retirees surveyed “are considering how the rising cost of living may affect their retirement plans.” B.C. pre-retirees are the most concerned about rising living costs – it was seen as a worry for 62 per cent of B.C. residents surveyed, the release notes.

On the planning and advice front, the survey found that “91 per cent of pre-retirees with a plan have a positive outlook” on their retirement, and 86 per cent of those with a plan say they worked with financial advisers, the release notes.

The takeaway from this research seems to be that folks closing in on retirement – plus those already there – are recognizing they may have to set aside money for care in the later years of their retirement. While we hope that everyone is able to avoid costly care in their latter years, it seems to be a growing concern – and the cost of long-term care can be very high.

Inflation has not reared its ugly head for many decades, but those of us who were in the workforce back in the 1970s and 1980s will remember that yes, we got big raises at work every year, but those raises were never enough to keep up to the crazy jumps in costs of goods, or double-digit interest on things like car loans.

An approach to both problems, of course, is to boost your retirement savings before you get to the golden years. If you don’t have a workplace pension program, hop on board the Saskatchewan Pension Plan and its do-it-yourself savings program. For 35 years, SPP has been converting the savings of folks like you into future retirement income, handling the heavy lifting of weathering the investment storm for its membership. Check them out today!

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New retirement plan’s goal is to “coast” into retirement

Writing in the Toronto Star, Lesley-Anne Scorgie reveals a new variation on the “financial independence, retire early” or FIRE plan.

This new variant, she tells us, is called the Coast FIRE plan.

But let’s backtrack. What exactly is the basic FIRE plan?

Scorgie writes that the FIRE movement was born in the late 1990s.

“These people were obsessed with early retirement and were willing to sacrifice just about anything to contribute significant sums of money to their nest egg as quickly as possible so that they could quit their jobs generally before age 50 and start to ‘live,’” she explains.

But, she says, for many this FIRE plan meant “going without vacations, eating beans daily and just being a cheapskate.” The idea was that foregoing the “extras” in life would allow one to put away thousands a month until having enough money to retire completely by age 50.

“I have two major issues with the concept,” she writes. “Firstly, the lifestyle of ultra-frugality is not appealing. Secondly, banking many thousands of dollars every month throughout your 20s, 30s and 40s is pretty unattainable for most people living in just about any city in Canada. The cost of living and debt are major preventative barriers.”

She goes on to point out “also, who retires at 50? You could have a whole other life, career and so on at that age!”

This is where Coast FIRE puts a different spin on the plan.

There is still an emphasis on financial independence, writes Scorgie, but “you steadily build up your nest egg until it reaches a point where it can grow independently through the power of compound interest and reinvested returns to the ultimate nest egg size you want, without you having to save another dime after you get to that initial savings point.”

So rather than having a hard stop to work, this variant of the plan has you basically creating a significant wealth creation nest egg that allows you to bolster your retirement income significantly when it’s time to log off for a final time.

And that’s the significant difference – the frugality and penny-pinching ends when your nest egg has reached its target amount.

“Once you reach the point where you no longer need to add another dollar to your retirement portfolio, you can have loads more freedom to do what you want like — work part-time or at a different job you like better, enjoy more cash flow for vacations and fun because you no longer have to tuck away 20 per cent of your income into your registered retirement savings plan (RRSP) and tax free savings account (TFSA),” she writes.

To figure out this retirement math, you need to have a general idea of when you want to retire (age) and the approximate money you will need for financial independence at that age. Scorgie says there are many Coast FIRE calculators out there to help you figure out your numbers, but key to the calculation is “current age, desired retirement age, a safe withdrawal rate… and an inflation-adjusted growth rate.”

This is a great column, and Scorgie’s views make a lot of sense. Many of us, for instance, only put away enough money in RRSPs to get us a tax refund each year. Not putting away enough when you are young makes it harder to catch up later.

Scorgie concludes by recommending that we all get some financial advice to ensure our savings plan is sound, also a wise suggestion.

If you are looking for a retirement savings vehicle that can generate steady growth and good returns during the time between now and the time to “coast” into retirement, consider the Saskatchewan Pension Plan. While past performance is not an indicator of future growth, the plan has averaged returns of eight per cent since its inception in 1986. That’s helped many of us build our retirement nest eggs. Check out SPP today.

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