June 26: Target Your Passion: Book Outlines How to Save your Retirement if Things go off Course

June 26, 2025

Years ago, at another job, we put out a booklet about what to do if you had an “unexpected” retirement. Where we were trying to go was to think about people who leave their jobs due to health problems, layoffs or cutbacks, and other unpleasant surprises.

Target Your Passion by Joy D. Holland uses a case history approach to present the stories of five people who faced unexpected adversity in their retirement years – and what they did to right the ship.

“Not everyone has the opportunity to travel on long vacations, to play 36 holes every week or `shop till you drop,’” she writes. Her book is aimed at those who “need to make plans” for retirement but “don’t have the direction.”

Many arrive at retirement asking, “what am I going to do now,” she continues. Do they know where they are headed – “do I have any ideas… any clues?” Or, if they aren’t doing anything with their time in retirement, “am I in a rut… how did I get here? What am I good at doing? What do I love to do?”

She warns us that “those who retire into a rocking chair fare very poorly. Their quality of life is not optimum, and their lives are shortened by boredom, poor health, or both. What a shameful loss! We still have so much more to give!”

Next, the book introduces five people facing five different retirement challenges. Retired bank employee Gloria’s husband Matt “suffered a massive stroke which left him almost completely incapacitated” soon after his retirement, throwing plans for retirement travel out the window.

Workaholic engineer Ted – divorced at age 57 – gets “a devastating diagnosis,” that he “was destined to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair,” making the avid, fit golfer “more and more angry.”

Maggie, the book tells us, is a single parent housekeeper who – now with an empty nest – isn’t able physically to do her work due to back problems. Chris, who worked for a construction company, found he had “cabin fever” after just months of retirement. Finally, Jessie, 60, is alone, unemployed and divorced “after decades of being a wife and mother who worked odd jobs to keep the family together.”

All five, writes Holland, “had some really difficult choices to make. Not one of them had any idea of where to begin. The first thing each of them did, after taking time to bemoan their future, was to face it and take stock of the situation in which they found themselves. They then listed their strengths and weaknesses, what they loved (and didn’t) and what they could do; and whether it was something they even wanted to do.”

Gloria looked for things she could work at and “drop in a second whenever Matt needed her.” She resumed an old hobby of needlework; “she could knit or crochet baby blankets” and sell them online.

Ted relaxed and “downsized his home and made it wheelchair-accessible and functional,” and bought a van he could drive with hands only. He looked into being a teacher of the engineering skills he had mastered.

Maggie, bad back and all, decided to hire a team of women to take her place in a cleaning business she would start and manage. Chris recalled the days of making wooden toys for his kids and got back into woodworking. Jessie dusted herself off, put a resume together based on her office skills, and began looking for new work and an affordable place to live.

All five took steps that ultimately turned their retired lives around, Holland writes.

“Most of us, at least, have options that those five might not have had… but they all used the same format to move forward,” Holland writes. Review and brainstorm your ideas and dreams, she writes. Look at things you like and love, your skills, and any “potential opportunities” that are out there for you. Look for resources at the local level, perhaps with the Chamber of Commerce or online tutorials, she continues.

She includes a detailed list of ideas for activities that can generate income and enjoyment.

This is an interesting and well-written approach to the subject of coping with adversity in your elder years.

Many people don’t think about saving for retirement and also don’t have any sort of retirement savings program at work. If the idea of saving and investing dollars for retirement is daunting to you, you may want to take a look at the Saskatchewan Pension Plan.

SPP does all the heavy lifting of retirement savings for you – they will take your savings dollars, invest them in a professionally managed, low-cost pooled fund, and grow them until you retire. When that day arrives, your options include a lifetime annuity payment or the more flexible Variable Benefit.

Check out SPP today!

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Joy D. Holland, Target Your Passion

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