Many of us have long had problems dealing with the cold and darkness of a Canadian winter. But this year, we will be adding in the problems of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Save with SPP took a look around to see how folks are planning to spend their first full winter of the pandemic.

Since one strategy to surviving the pandemic is to be outdoors, sporting goods businesses are reporting very brisk business in winter recreation equipment, reports CTV News.

“It’s been quite a marked change from the normal August and early September sales,” Paul Zirk, general manager of The Destination Slope and Surf Outfitters in North Vancouver, tells CTV. “It’s been really up and it’s been really focused on winter sports. This year, our track as far back as mid-July was ski-focused and winter-focused and at some weeks triple what we expected.”

Hot sellers include skis and snowboards, snowshoes, and heavier winter clothing, the article notes.

The Real Simple blog rhymes off 49 different winter activities that you can try this year.

Sledding, hiking, skating, snowball fights, and stargazing are on the list, as well as things like enjoying a family night in front of “a roaring fire,” enjoying winter favourites like hot cocoa and mulled wine, and cozying up with a bowl of homemade soup. The article also lists crafty ideas, like making a birdfeeder or knitting a scarf.

Global News reports that it is important, during the upcoming colder months, to avoid isolation. Psychologist Dr. Ganz Ferrence tells the broadcaster that people “should be planning now for what they’ll do to stay busy and safe once the temperature dips below zero.”

Ideas include skiing – downhill or cross-country — snowshoeing, skating and tobogganing. If you’re too old or not well enough for outdoor activities, at least get outside, urges Dr. Ferrence.

“Just to get that fresh air, that sunshine, whatever it is, seeing that the rest of the world still exists is much better than just giving in to being shut-in,” the doctor says.

Be sure to stay in touch with friends and family during the winter, when visiting is limited by poor travel conditions. Using online tools like Zoom to meet loved ones is a great idea, Dr. Ferrence says. “The best is face to face — being able to touch and feel and everything — the next level though, is this. Being able to see somebody and look in their eyes, see their facial expressions, their tone of voice,” he tells Global News. “Underneath that is phone.”

One group of Canadians that has long chosen against toughing out our winters – Snowbirds – may find this to be a tough season, reports the Globe and Mail.

With border restrictions in place, and COVID-19 outbreaks at high levels in popular winter vacation states like Florida, many Snowbirds may have to give up their travel plans this year, the article reports.

Renee Huart-Field and her husband live in P.E.I. and normally vacation in Florida’s Gulf Coast. Because their dogs usually come to Florida too, they aren’t keen on flying, and the border crossings by vehicle are severely limited, the article notes. So they must decide whether to winter on the Island, or travel elsewhere in Canada.

“People sort of think well, gee, must be nice to have that dilemma. But it’s not,” Huart-Field tells the Globe and Mail. “As you get older, the winters become harder… It’s a health thing.’”

If you’re a retiree and hope to do a little travelling, and have some fun in the winter sun, a little retirement income goes a long way to helping you reach those goals. If you’re still a long way from retirement, there’s plenty of time to start saving – and a wonderful option could be the Saskatchewan Pension Plan. The SPP is quite unique, in that it not only offers you a savings program for your working years, it helps you convert those dollars – grown through SPP’s professional investing team – into an income stream once you’re done with the workforce and ready for the leisureforce. Why not check them out today!

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Survey suggests we’ll work longer and have less retirement income

Writing in the Globe and Mail, Ian McGugan takes a look at a new survey from Mercer Canada that he says suggests “the recession created by the novel coronavirus (has) delivered a stinging blow to many retirement systems, including Canada’s.”

According to the article, David Knox, an author of the 2020 Mercer CFA Institute Global Pension Index, says the current economic downturn “will impact future pensions, meaning some people will work longer while others will have to settle for a lower standard of living in retirement.”

Worse, the article reports – women will suffer more than men from this situation.

“Many of the hardest hit will be women. They have suffered disproportionately large job losses in this downturn because many work in sectors, such as restaurants and retailing, that have been hardest hit by lockdown restrictions,” writes McGugan.

As well, Mercer’s Scott Clausen tells the Globe, the traditional “caregiver role” of women means they have tended “to work part-time or take breaks from their career, which reduces their ability to make pension contributions and accumulate time in a pension plan.” The pandemic, Clausen suggests in the article, has made this retirement savings disparity even worse.

Despite these apparent systemic problems, the Globe notes that Canada recently was ranked 9^th out of 39 industrialized nations in meeting the retirement challenge, with a “B” rating.

There’s a second side to the story, the article continues. Not only are people facing challenges in earning money and paying into pension plans, but the pension plans themselves are having a tough time of things, the Globe reports.

Again citing the report, McGugan notes that “a major challenge for retirement planners everywhere is the falling returns from most pension assets. Declining bond yields, reduced company dividends and lower rentals from property investments have shrunk prospective returns.”

In an interesting sort of paradox, the country whose pension system is rated number one in the industrialized world (in the same Mercer survey) is having problems meeting its funding targets. Two large pension plans there may have to cut pension payments next year, reports Dutch News.

“The two biggest Dutch funds, the giant civil service fund APB and the health service fund PFZW had failed to meet official targets in the third quarter of this year. Both funds’ coverage ratios – the assets needed to meet their obligations – had fallen below 90 per cent in the July to September period. If this is the case in the final quarter of the year, they will have to make cuts to pension payouts in 2021. The two big engineering funds are also in the danger zone. Together the four funds cover some eight million pensioners and participants,” the news agency reports.

The key messages here are quite simple – due to the health crisis, many of us are working less, and others not at all. It’s difficult to save for retirement, either in a workplace plan or on your own, if you are earning less overall. At the same time, it’s tough sledding on the investment side for the world’s pension plans. Payouts, as in the Dutch example, could be less.

Members of the Saskatchewan Pension Plan (SPP) have the ability to set their own contribution levels – there’s no set percentage of income that automatically comes off your pay. If you’re making less, or nothing at all, you can reduce or pause contributions without affecting your membership – and when better times return, you can ramp them back up again. Take a minute to check out the SPP today!

There’s no question that the pandemic has thrown a wrench into the financial plans of most Canadians.

New research from Manulife, its annual Financial Stress Survey of Canadians, tells us that Canadians are really worried about money.

Stress about money has risen to 27 per cent (it was 11 per cent pre-COVID), the research notes, and 51 per cent reported dipping into emergency funds or even retirement accounts to keep afloat. A whopping 63 per cent said they were now going to seek advice about how to invest, up from 50 per cent last year.

Save with SPP took a look around the Interweb to see what sort of advice people had for jittery investors. We looked for approaches one might follow, and not specific stock tip advice.

Concordia University’s Alumni & Friends publication quotes financial adviser Adrian Chomenko as saying investors need to “relax, stay the course, and try not to predict the future.”

“Bear markets are as common as dirt. We’ve lived through them before and all you’ve got to do is sit through it,” states Chomenko in the article. He is adamant with his clients, the article reports, “that his strategy does not include speculating on the latest investment trends such as cannabis and bitcoin.”

“My strategy is plain vanilla: simple diversification and regular rebalancing,” Chomenko tells the publication.

Writing for the Motley Fool UK blog, Thomas Carr offers these tips – invest in quality, avoid “stricken sectors,” and to look for value.

He writes that many companies will suffer during the pandemic, but “the strongest may survive and prosper. These are companies that have strong brands, pricing power and high profit margins. They’re the household names that we stock in our fridges and the supermarkets that we shop in.”

Stricken sectors to consider avoiding, he writes, include “travel and hospitality in particular… they’ve had months of revenue wiped out, in many cases leading to giant losses.” Losses may continue into the new year, he warns.

Watch for stocks that are “undervalued… and appear cheap.” Carr says that “if the underlying company is of sufficient quality, there’s only so far its share price is likely to fall before its value becomes attractive and its price recovers.”

At Forbes magazine,  Pam Krueger, co-host of the PSB program Moneytrack, says she favours “conservative stocks that pay reliable dividends” as a good bet during the pandemic.

Bonds are often seen as a hedge against volatile stocks, but the article warns that right now, there’s a risk of interest rates rising and bond prices falling, a situation that would make a bet on bonds a money-loser.

“I say: ‘Stay at the shallow end of the pool, the shortest end, with bond funds,” said Krueger. “You don’t want to get too far out on the risk continuum,’” she tells Forbes.

This is a broad topic, but if there’s an overall theme coming through here, it is to be cautious. These experts are warning against radical, rushed changes – don’t let panic impact your thinking. Every crisis has a beginning, but also an end, and this one will eventually play out too.

Investing on your own can be fun, but less so when market conditions are volatile. If you’re worried about running your retirement savings, perhaps it’s time to consider finding a home for them at the Saskatchewan Pension Plan (SPP) will invest your savings expertly, and the plan boasts an impressive average rate of return of eight per cent since SPP’s inception nearly 35 years ago. Consider letting SPP’s talented money managers assist with the worry of retirement investing.

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How much should we put putting away in savings?

We are bombarded by advice on why we should be saving more – but how much is “enough” when it comes to filling the piggy bank?

An article from Morningstar UK takes a look at this problematic question.

How much to save, the article tells us, “will depend on a number of factors: what you’re saving for, how soon you might need the money, and how much you can afford.”

Fair enough. The article goes on. “Saving money is important, but not at the expense of putting yourself in financial difficulty. Paying off credit cards or loans should generally take priority over savings, because the interest rates on this type of debt are typically much higher than the interest you can earn on your savings,” the article notes, adding that “a growing debt pile will only wipe out any returns you earn on your savings.” to save.

The article proposes a sort of savings formula, which the writers call the “the 50-30-20” rule.

Through this formula, half of your money – 50 per cent – goes to “necessities, including groceries, monthly bills like your phone, as well as paying your rent and mortgage.”

The next chunk of cash – 30 per cent – should be for “the things you don’t need but which make you happy,” such as dining out or shopping for clothes.

It’s the last tranche of moolah – 20 per cent – that Morningstar UK feels should be directed to saving. “This money can be invested in a pension, put into a rain day fund” or some sort of fixed-income savings vehicle, like a guaranteed investment certificate.

“Chunking your money in this way is an easy strategy to manage your finances because it means you know exactly how much you have to spend and to save each month. It also means that you automatically increase the amount you save when your income rises because you are setting aside a percentage of your money rather than a set amount,” the article concludes.

If, on reading this, you think “man, this just won’t work with my bills,” have no fear, the article says.

“Most of us have bills to pay, student loans to grapple with and families to feed, and this limits the amount of spare money there is to save each month. In fact, it’s estimated that around 40 per cent of Brits in their twenties have no savings at all,” the article notes.

“But the key point is: saving something – anything, however small – is better than saving nothing.”

It’s a great piece of advice. If you can’t save 20 per cent of what you make, it’s not a crime. Start with what you can. Then, when you’ve paid off a credit card or credit line, direct some of what you were paying to savings. You’ll be surprised how the money will begin to pile up.

With our Saskatchewan Pension Plan (www.saskpension.com), we put in a small percentage of our pay, but also winnings from lottery tickets, money from taking back empties, yard sale proceeds – any little extra amounts. The balances in our retirement savings accounts are getting fairly substantial after being at it for 10-plus years, and we have been transferring money into SPP from our registered retirement savings plans. Be sure to check out the SPP – they have the investing know-how and solid track record to help make your retirement savings grow.

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While there’s no doubt that Sarah Billington’s The Ultimate Retirement Bucket List is well-written, it has a feature that few other books on the topic have. With this book, you are essentially a co-author, and it’s you who fleshes out the details on your own retirement bucket list.

Billington starts by noting that while retirement does indeed mean you are getting older, “don’t let it hold you back. Age is just a number if you take care of your body and mind.”

Then the co-authoring begins – a little questionnaire asks about your passions, your skills, and new things you’d like to learn. It asks you what you’d like to do more, and importantly, what you’d like to do less.

The Fun and Leisure chapter asks you to list books you’d like to read, movies and TV shows you want to “see or binge-watch,” recipes to cook and new pursuits to try.

The Travel Adventures Near and Far section sets out local attractions you’d like to see, restaurants you’d like to dine at, festivals and events to attend, and day trips to take.

The Common Deathbed Regrets chapter asks you to list any “relationships to repair,” and people you’ve lost touch with, folks you should visit and birthday cards you should send. We liked the advice in the Relationships chapter to jot down people “to spend more time with” and “people to spend less time with.”

On that latter group, Billington notes that “if there are people you find drain you, or bring you down, or take up too much of your time or emotional space, write their names down here. Silently thank them for the memories you shared together, wish them well, and mentally let them go to make room for those who fulfill you.” A wise sentiment, that.

Other chapters cover Healthy Habits – those to change, and those to adopt. There’s advice on Mental Health including the need to let regrets go and practice mindfulness. There’s a chapter on Creating Purpose.

At the end of this interactive book you will have created a handy list of all the things you want to do, plus a few you don’t want to do. It’s a reference manual – rather than thinking up new things to do with all the extra time you’ll have, you capture the ideas once and then can add/review/amend them going forward.

At the end, writes Billington, you have a bucket list “for a healthy and strong, adventurous, mind-expanding, fulfilling, playful, meditative, and meaningful retirement to help you expand your comfort zone so you can focus on and live the life you truly desire for the decades to come. Your retirement years are going to be your best ones yet.”

Those best years, of course, will be even better if you’ve saved for retirement along the way. If you don’t have a pension plan at work (or you do, but want to build additional savings) the Saskatchewan Pension Plan (SPP) may be just the ticket. It’s your personal retirement system – you contribute some cash during your working years, that money is invested and grown on your behalf, and at retirement, SPP provides you with options on how to turn the invested savings into a lifetime income stream. Why not check out SPP today?

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Bonds have lost their lustre, says pension expert Keith Ambachtsheer

Bonds have long been considered a key component of our retirement savings strategies. After all, equities are more volatile, right?

Pension expert Keith Ambachtsheer, commenting in the Globe and Mail, says bonds are losing their lustre, and are being crushed by today’s low-interest rate environment.

“Twenty years ago, inflation-indexed bonds offered a real yield of 4 per cent,” Ambachtsheer states in the Globe article. “Today their yield is not just zero, but actually negative.”

He calls them “dead weight investments” that “currently have no role” for institutional investors, such as pension plans.

The article presents a graph showing the yields on 10-year Canadian government bonds since 1960. They ranged from just under six per cent yields in the early ‘60s to an eye-popping 17 per cent in the early 1980s, and have slowly dropped ever since. Yields fell below four per cent in 2004 and are approaching zero today, the article’s graph shows.

So if bonds aren’t getting it done in your investment portfolio, what’s a solution for the average guy or gal?

Ambachtsheer tells the Globe that “solid dividend-paying stocks” provide the answer. A heavier percentage of dividend-paying equities is better than the traditional 60-40 stock/bond mix, he suggests.

The Globe article comments on that idea, saying “there are, to be sure, some objections to this viewpoint. One is whether pension funds and individuals are prepared to deal with the occasional but devastating paper losses that go along with holding an all-equity portfolio.”

It seems that many Canadians who normally would invest are sitting on the fence about it.

As we reported in an earlier blog post, Canadians – again according to the Globe and Mail – are sitting on $127 billion, now lying in chequing, savings and Guaranteed Investment Certificates (GIC) accounts and not being invested in either the stock or bond markets.

Rather than picking a day and putting all the money in, portfolio manager Mary Hagerman tells the Globe that a better approach is to invest some of your money at multiple different times.

She recommends “investing excess cash either in regular intervals, such as a set amount each month (known as dollar-cost averaging), or when there are major stock market drops or corrections,” the article states.

“I’m not suggesting people try to time the market, but sometimes the market talks to you and you have to listen,” Hagerman tells the Globe.

So we’re living through a period when the safe harbour of bonds is a dubious choice due to very low interest rates, and when stock markets are very volatile.

For members of the Saskatchewan Pension Plan, it’s good to know that professional investment managers are on the case – they are the ones guiding your savings through these choppy waters. And if you’re interested in a dollar-cost averaging approach, the SPP can help you set up a regular monthly direct deposit, so that you aren’t having to time the market. Check them out today.

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Back in the 1960s when this writer was young, there were only a few channels available for staying in touch with the grandparents.

We’d pile into the car and drive down to Montreal to see dad’s parents, and Saint John to see mom’s parents, at least once or twice a year. During any holiday we’d line up around the family landline while mom placed a rare long-distance call so we could hear their voices. And we’d send cards and write letters.

These days, it’s not always easy or possible to visit. So what are people doing to stay in touch with family and distant friends during the pandemic?

At the Stream MD blog , a list of creative ways to keep in touch are presented. Video-streaming is now easily available from your phone and computer, and using Zoom or Teams or Facetime is an excellent and safe way to see family and friends, the article notes.

If you have Netflix or Prime Video, you can hold a “virtual watch party” and see a movie with your family and friends online, the blog advises. Other ideas from Stream MD include having shared music playlists and taking online courses together.

The Which? blog in the UK talks about holding virtual birthday parties for friends using Zoom.

“I went to a surprise party the other night: about 30 of us gathered to sing happy birthday to a friend and give him the birthday present we’d all clubbed together to buy him – some new DJ decks,” writes blogger Kate Bevan.

“But don’t worry – even though he only lives over the river from me in Clapham, I wasn’t actually there. And neither was anyone else, except for his flatmate,” all thanks to the use of Zoom, she reports.

In addition to Zoom, the article mentions the Google Duo phone app and Facebook Portal; the latter is “so simple to use that it’s worth considering if you have a family member who is unsure with tech.”

Tech is great, but there are other ways to achieve success, reports the Healthy Vix blog.

Get the kids to make “a handmade card” for the older folks, the article advises. “The children, especially, love to make a handmade card to send to their Nana or other family members. It’s really exciting for them to make a card and walk to the local letterbox to post it,” the blog explains.

Also, if the grandparents aren’t going to be able to figure out technology, or have no one to help them with it, go old-school, Healthy Vix advises. “There’s no need for elderly relatives to get their head around social media or confusing technology when a good old phone call will suffice. Keep things simple and call your loved ones for a good old chinwag when you can. Just hearing each other’s voices can help you feel in touch and connected, even when apart,” the blog suggests.

It’s been a strange year for visiting family who are in seniors’ apartments or nursing homes. At one visit we were greeted by a fully-PPE-protected (and friendly) staffer who took our temperatures and logged our contact details before we could have a one-hour, heavily sanitizer-ized visit with the wife’s mom. Our cousin had to visit her mom from behind a barrier, waving across a parking lot. Our neighbour talked to his elderly dad in London by driving down there and lying on the grass outside his nursing home window so he could yell hello through the window.

Whatever works should be given a try.

Did you know you can stay in touch with the Saskatchewan Pension Plan (SPP) from the comfort of your own living room? When you sign up for MySPP you can see a record of your contributions, your account balance, information on investment returns updated monthly, and can review your personal contact information. Let your fingers do the clicking and check out SPP today!

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Watch out for these 20 mistakes retirement savers are making

The journey between the here and now of work, and the imaginary future wonderworld of retirement, is a peculiar one. We all imagine the destination differently and no one’s super clear on the route!

The folks over at MSN have a great little post about 20 pitfalls we need to avoid on the retirement journey.

The first, and probably most obvious pitfall, is “not having enough savings.” The blog post notes that “32 per cent of Canadians approaching retirement don’t have any savings,” citing BNN Bloomberg research. “Middle-aged and older Canadians should start saving as early as possible,” the post warns.

If you’re already a saver, are you aware of the fees you are paying on your investments? “High fees can eat up huge amounts of your savings over time if you’re not careful,” the post states.

Many of us who lack savings say hey, no problem, I’ll just keep working, even past age 65. The post points out that (according to Statistics Canada), “30 per cent of individuals who took an early retirement in 2002 did so because of their health.” In other words, working later may not be the option you think it is.

Are you assuming the kids won’t need any help once you hit your gold watch era? Beware, the blog says, noting that RBC research has found “almost half of parents with children aged 30-35 are still financially subsidizing their kids in some way.”

Another issue for Canucks is taking their federal government benefits too early. You don’t have to take CPP and OAS until age 70, the blog says – and you get substantially more income per month if you wait.

Some savers don’t invest, the blog says. “While it may seem risky to rely on the stock market, the real risk is that inflation will eat up your savings over time, while investments tend to increase in value over long periods of time,” the MSN bloggers tell us.

Raiding the RRSP cookie jar before you retire is also a no-no, the blog reports – the tax hit is heavy and you lose the room forever. Conversely, there are also penalties for RRIF owners if they fail to take enough money out, the blog says.

Other tips – expect healthcare costs of $5,391 per person in retirement each year, avoid retiring with a mortgage (we know about this one), be aware of the equity risks of a reverse mortgage, and don’t count on your house to fully fund your retirement.

The takeaway from all of this sounds very straightforward, but of course requires a lot of self-discipline to achieve – you need to save as much as you can while eliminating debt, all prior to retirement. And you have to maximize your income from all sources. That’s how our parents and grandparents did it – once there was no mortgage or debt they put down the shovel and enjoyed the rest of their time.

If you have a workplace pension, congratulations – you are in the minority, and you should do what you can to stay in that job to receive that future pension. If you don’t have a pension at work, the onus for retirement savings is on you. If you’re not sure about investments and fees, you could turn to the Saskatchewan Pension Plan for help. They have been growing peoples’ savings since the mid-1980s, all for a very low investment fee, and they can turn those savings into lifetime income when work ends and the joy of retirement begins.

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As a society, we are inundated with advertising on TV, social media and traditional newspapers that urge us all to save for retirement. We see a similar number of headlines, tweets and news items warning us that Canadians have record levels of household debt.

We are told to save for retirement, but also to pay off our debts. Is there a correct answer to the question of which comes first, retirement saving or debt reduction? Save with SPP clicked around to see what people are saying about this topic.

CTV British Columbia notes that the question for any leftover money at the end of the month is typically “spend it or save it.”

In the CTV report, Penny Wang of Consumer Reports proposes doing both. “It’s difficult to tackle two financial goals at once, but if you take a two-pronged approach, you can save for retirement and pay down your debt at the same time,” she tells the broadcaster.

Wang says you need to start by creating a basic budget to see where your money is going. This can help free up more for debt reduction and saving, she advises. Make your own coffee and cook at home, she suggests.

Take that extra money and put some on debt, targeting “high interest debt like credit cards first,” and lower interest debt later. For long-term savings, the article suggests setting up some sort of automatic withdrawal plan so the cash is gone before you have time to spend it.

The MoneyTalks News blog comes down a little more on the side of retirement saving.

“While living debt-free is a great goal, accumulating a pile of cash is critical, especially for those approaching retirement,” states MoneyTalks News founder Stacy Johnson in the article.

Debts like mortgages, he explains, can be dealt with by selling off your house and renting, but when you are entering retirement, “cash is king.”

He advises people to save “as much as possible” inside and outside retirement accounts, and once a “comfortable cushion” is achieved, you can turn your attention to putting extra money on debt, including mortgages.

So let’s put this together. At a time when the pandemic has many of us off work and/or receiving government help, we’re dealing with two problems – high household debt and low retirement savings. We know how much debt we have. According to the Motley Fool blog notes the following:

“To understand whether your registered retirement savings plan (RRSP) measures up, it helps to look at how other Canadians are doing with theirs. There are ample studies out there to help you find that out. One such study from the Bank of Montreal revealed the average Canadian’s RRSP balance.

The amount? $101,155.

At an average portfolio yield of 3.5%, that pays about $3,500 a year.

A nice income supplement, but nothing you can retire on.

Clearly, you’ll need more than that to retire comfortably. The question is, how much more?”

So, for those of us with debt, and without sufficient retirement savings, any road will take us to Rome. Whether you decide to save for retirement first and deal with debt later, or go with the two-pronged approach, succeeding in managing debt and growing savings will deliver you a lot more security once you’re retired.

If you’re in the market for a retirement savings plan, you may want to consider the Saskatchewan Pension Plan (SPP). The SPP allows you to contribute in many different ways – you can have money directly transferred from your bank account on a monthly basis, or you can set up SPP as an online bill and transfer in money now and then. That flexibility can help you ratchet up savings even as you chip away at debt.

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The book Not Fade Away by Celia Dodd is a retirement book that’s not brimming with charts and tables and heavy investment advice. This well-written and thoughtful book focuses more on the key decisions you’ll face on the road to your own retirement plan.

Retirement, she writes, can be hard for many of us, like leaving home, we are leaving work for perhaps the first time. “Why do people feel lost, overwhelmed, and even depressed without it? It’s almost as if we are addicted to work… work is such a big part of our lives for such a long time that it’s hard to leave it behind,” Dodd notes.

She provides a list of the things we worry about when thinking of retirement:

• Health
• Money
• Relationship with partner
• Loss of identity/self-esteem/confidence
• Boredom and lack of purpose
• Lack of structure
• Loss of skills (because they are not being used)

With those thoughts in mind, Dodd points out that retirement is not like an on-off switch; there are several ways to approach it. There’s the traditional “cliff edge” approach, full retirement from all work; there is “phased retirement through a reduced workload with your existing employer,” or “phased retirement through new part-time work or becoming self-employed.”

All these roads (for many of us) eventually lead to full retirement – no work at all. Dodd advises us to try and “think about what an average weekday (in retirement) would ideally be like once the honeymoon period is over.” Jot this down, she says, and be specific.

Think about how you handled “previous transitions in your life,” or how you spent any really long holidays.

“Think about what you’re going to miss most about work and how you might recreate it: water cooler moments? Mental challenge? Working in a team? Commuting?” Dodd assures us that some people actually do miss the trip to work.

Take note of the things you enjoy both at work and in your spare time, talk to retired friends, and if you’re planning to volunteer or start a business, find out “what skills and qualifications you might need,” she writes, adding that we should also consider “untravelled roads,” things we once liked to do, or wanted to do, but aren’t doing.

When you are more separated from full-time work, Dodd writes, consider the “ingredients for fulfillment” in life, such as “activities that nurture you: walking, listening to or playing music and practising yoga.”

It’s important to meet up with old friends, she writes, but as important to meet new ones, “and take part in activities in a group.”

Ideally you should find activities you can “lose yourself in,” keep your brain sharp, stay challenged, have a sense of achievement, and “an overarching sense of purpose – long-term goals that incorporate short-term goals.”

The book offers many more thought-provoking ideas, including some basic tips about retirement income, such as making sure you are getting correctly taxed, breaking habits (like being generous) if you can no longer afford them, and to spend money “on experiences and socializing rather than material possessions.”

When this writer was planning to leave full-time work, it was very difficult to imagine what it would be like on the other side of the fence. This book is about as good as it gets when it comes to answering that question – and makes the point that there’s no such thing as a cookie cutter retirement, that it’s not always all about money, and that your own unique circumstances will define your retirement. Definitely worth a read!

No matter how your retirement unfolds, having a little more retirement income will be handy. The Saskatchewan Pension Plan can be part of your retirement income plan. You can contribute up to $6,300 per year to the plan, and expert investors will grow it for you at an extremely competitive low rate. When it’s time to fully or partially leave the workforce, those invested contributions can be converted to a lifetime income stream via SPP annuities. Take a minute to check it out on SPP’s website today.

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