What if there was a way to convert some or all of the money you’ve saved up for retirement into cash for life – monthly payments for as long as you live?

And once you made this conversion, you’d no longer have to make any investment decisions for this money; you’d just have to trot over to the Super Mailbox each month to collect a cheque.

There is just such a product, the annuity, but for some reason, it’s not something people choose very often. Writing in MoneySense, David Aston calls annuities “the best retirement product that hardly anyone buys,” adding that they amount to a sort of do-it-yourself defined benefit (DB) plan.

“Like DB pensions, (annuities) provide guaranteed income for as long as you live. But while employer pensions are considered the gold standard of retirement income plans, few Canadians ever think about annuities,” writes Aston, calling their unpopularity “baffling.”

Aston says that for some people, such as those with wealth or who have DB pensions from work, an annuity is probably not necessary. And others don’t like the idea of “their finality – once you give your cash to the insurance company, you’re locked in for life.” There’s no more “growth potential” for this investment and you can’t tap into it for lump sum amounts, he explains.

But, says Aston, they are ideal for cash flow. Many people buy an annuity which, along with government pensions, “meets all your non-discretionary needs,” such as keeping the lights on, the furnace going, and the rent paid via the steady, predictable and guaranteed income. And if you convert part of your retirement savings to an annuity, you can “afford to take more risks with the rest of your portfolio.”

One would imagine that those who took out annuities prior to the market downturn in 2008 are happy with their choice, because while you may miss out on investment gains, you also miss out on investment losses with an annuity.

In a video posted to Save with SPP, Moshe Milevsky, Professor of Finance at York University’s Schulich School of Business, calls annuities “insurance against something that is really a blessing, longevity.” Because the annuity pays you for life, you can never run out of money, he notes.

Writing in the Globe and Mail financial columnist Rob Carrick notes that unlike withdrawing money from a RRIF or other vehicle, the withholding tax on an annuity is not automatically deducted but is taxed the same as regular income, he explains.

He reports that a good time to consider buying an annuity is when you are older. “The later you buy, the shorter the period of time the insurer selling an annuity expects to have to pay you. As a result, payments are higher than they would be if you bought at a younger age,” he explains.

The cost of an annuity depends on current interest rates, which have been quite low for a while but are rising, which is good news for annuity buyers.

The Saskatchewan Pension Plan (SPP) is somewhat unique in that it can convert your savings into an annuity. They offer four different kinds of guaranteed annuities, and your money continues to be invested by SPP while you sit back and wait for the monthly cheque. For full details, check out the Retirement Options chapter in the SPP Retirement Guide.

Written by Martin Biefer

Martin Biefer is Senior Pension Writer at Avery & Kerr Communications in Nepean, Ontario. After a 35-year career as a reporter, editor and pension communicator, Martin is enjoying life as a freelance writer. He’s a mediocre golfer, hopeful darts player and beginner line dancer who enjoys classic rock and sports, especially football. He and his wife Laura live with their Sheltie, Duncan, and their cat, Toobins. You can follow him on Twitter – his handle is @AveryKerr22

I’m just catching up after a few weeks in the Punta Cana sunshine. The resort where we were staying had excellent wifi everywhere so there was no escaping the relentless news cycle, especially in my home province of Ontario where the Progressive Conservative party elected Doug Ford as their new leader.

Shifting the focus back to Saskatchewan, Advisor.ca reports that there will be no longer be a provincial sales tax on agriculture, life and health insurance premiums. Premier Scott Moe pledged to bring in the exemption during the recent Saskatchewan Party leadership race. He said in a statement that the government is committed to helping families and small businesses. He added it will not impact the government’s three-year plan to balance the budget by 2020. The exemption covers premiums for crop, livestock and hail, as well as individual and group life and health insurance. It is retroactive to Aug. 1, 2017, the same day the province started adding the 6% PST to insurance premiums.

Boomer & Echo’s Robb Engen did the math on investment fees and he says the results weren’t pretty. Readers who shared their portfolio details with him revealed accounts loaded with deferred sales charges (DSCs), management expense ratios (MERs) in the high 2% range and funds overlapping the same sectors and regions. Portfolios filled with segregated funds were the biggest offenders. Saskatchewan Pension Plan offers professional fund management for 1% per year on average.

If you are planning foreign travel in the near future, Rob Carrick’s Globe and Mail article One bank dings clients who travel, while another lightens the load is a must read. He notes that Scotiabank recently introduced a strong new travel reward credit card that doesn’t charge the usual 2.5% fee on foreign currency conversions. In contrast, TD has been advising account holders that effective May 1, it will raise the foreign-currency conversion fee on ATM withdrawals and debit transactions outside Canada to 3.5% from 2.5%.

On Money After Graduation, Bridget Casey offers tips on how to hustle as a new parent. As a self-employed individual she didn’t qualify for government-sponsored leave which means she had to self-fund her own maternity leave. She has managed to get her baby on a schedule (the EASY Baby Schedule, if you’ve heard of it), and she says her days of procrastination are gone. She has also stopped working for free for “exposure” or attending events to “network.” Finally, she has hired a part-time nanny.

Alan Whitton aka BIGCAJUNMAN started the Canadian Personal Finance Blog 13 years ago and he says he is still financially crazy. He believes debt is a bad thing, he doesn’t buy individual stocks and thinks pay day loans are the devil’s work  (all of which sound pretty sane to me). He links to previous blogs he likes to re-read and enjoy plus blogs he has posted that have received the most views.  Take a look here. No doubt you will find some interesting reads.

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Do you follow blogs with terrific ideas for saving money that haven’t been mentioned in our weekly “Best from the blogosphere?” Share the information on http://wp.me/P1YR2T-JR and your name will be entered in a quarterly draw for a gift card.

Written by Sheryl Smolkin
	Sheryl Smolkin LLB., LLM is a retired pension lawyer and President of Sheryl Smolkin & Associates Ltd. For over a decade, she has enjoyed a successful encore career as a freelance writer specializing in retirement, employee benefits and workplace issues. Sheryl and her husband Joel are empty-nesters, residing in Toronto with their cockapoo Rufus.

What I find most interesting about budgets are the provisions that are often buried in the fine print and don’t make the front page of the newspaper. You will find links below to some widely-reported features of the 2018 Federal Budget and others you may not yet be aware of.

The graphic above illustrates how the new EI parental-sharing benefit will operate. The Investment Executive reports that in an initiative that was widely-anticipated in the lead-up to the February 27th budget, the Liberal government introduced a new Employment Insurance (EI) parental sharing benefit that will provide extended EI parental benefits when both parents agree to share parental leave. The proposed “use-it-or-lose-it” benefit will increase the duration of EI parental leave by up to five weeks for parents who share a standard 12-month parental leave, or up to eight weeks for parents who share an extended 18-month leave. This incentive is expected to be available starting June 2019.

And while details are sketchy, MPs may finally be entitled to long over-due maternity and parental leave. According to the Budget Papers (p.52):

“The Government is supportive of, and will work with Parliament on, the recommendations put forward in the report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs entitled Support for Members of Parliament with Young Children. This includes…improving work-life balance, providing access to child care and designated spaces for the use of Members with infants and children, and a change to the Standing Orders of the House of Commons to allow an infant being cared for by a Member of Parliament to be present on the floor of the House of Commons. The Government will also bring forward amendments to the Parliament of Canada Act to make it possible for Parliamentarians to take maternity and parental leave.”

The government has backtracked on key tax measures for small businesses. Mark Burgess at advisor.ca explains how the federal government will tie the passive income threshold to the small business deduction. He notes that the plan put forward in Tuesday’s federal budget takes a different approach to the one the government proposed last summer that received considerable blowback from business owners.

If a corporation earns more than $50,000 of passive investment income in a year, the amount of income eligible for the small business tax rate is reduced and more of the company’s active income is taxed at the general corporate rate. The $50,000 threshold originally announced in changes the government made to its proposals while under pressure from business groups in October is equivalent to $1 million in passive investment assets at a 5% return.

Julie Cazzen at Maclean’s lists 15 ways Budget 2018 will affect your wallet.  Here are a few of the interesting budget provisions she highlights:

• The Canadian Child Benefit will be indexed to inflation starting July 2018.
• You will be able to open an RESP and claim the $500 Canada Learning Bond grant at the same time that you apply for a birth certificate for your child. This will automatically enroll children born into low-income families for the grant.
• Canada Student Grants and Loans has expanded eligibility for part time students, as well as full and part time students with children, and introduced a three-year pilot project that will provide adults returning to school on a full-time basis after several years in the workforce with an additional $1,600 in grant money starting Aug 1, 2018.
• A new Apprenticeship Incentive Grant for Women will give women in male-dominated trades fields $3,000 per year of training (or up to $6,000 over two years). Almost all Red Seal trades are eligible.
• The CPP death benefit is now $2,500 for all eligible contributors (whereas before it was pro-rated.)

Rob Carrick in the Globe and Mail discusses seven changes that could affect your finances. For example, following up on public consultations in 2016, the federal government is poised to announce improvements to Canada Deposit Insurance Corp. The consultations looked at adding registered disability savings plans (RDSPs) and registered education savings plans (RESPs) to the list of registered accounts that are covered and adding foreign currency deposits to covered products.

This would benefit snowbirds keeping large deposits in U.S.-dollar accounts. Other reforms could add coverage for guaranteed investment certificates of longer than five-year terms. Increasing the current $100,000 coverage limit for eligible deposits does not appear to be in the government’s plans.

Some other lesser known and unexpected Budget proposals reported by the Financial Post are:

• The government will create an advisory council to begin “a national dialogue” on a national pharmacare program.
• The government is moving to provide more support for Canadians suffering from mental health issues – including veterans – by helping them with the cost of psychiatric service dogs. Specifically, starting this year, the Medical Expense Tax Credit will be expanded to cover costs associated with the animals.

The federal government also announced in the budget that it will eventually move away from its problem-plagued Phoenix pay system – which has overpaid, underpaid or completely failed to pay tens of thousands of public servants – and invest $16-million over two years to develop a new pay system.

You can see the full document tabled in the House of Commons here.

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Written by Sheryl Smolkin
	Sheryl Smolkin LLB., LLM is a retired pension lawyer and President of Sheryl Smolkin & Associates Ltd. For over a decade, she has enjoyed a successful encore career as a freelance writer specializing in retirement, employee benefits and workplace issues. Sheryl and her husband Joel are empty-nesters, residing in Toronto with their cockapoo Rufus.

Unfortunately, what goes up must come down and recent volatility illustrates that the stock market is no exception. Your head knows this is the time NOT to check your investments every day or start selling at a loss, but your heart is still going pitter patter at random hours of the day and night.

There is little doubt that unpredictable markets will likely be the norm for the near future. This week we present blogs and mainstream media articles to help you achieve the intestinal fortitude to ride out the storm, particularly if you are retired or close to retirement.

The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average both entered correction territory in early February — closing down 10% from the all-time highs that each hit several weeks earlier. The TSX also shed hundreds of points. Fortune explained the drop this way:

“The selloff comes as investors grow worried that the stock market may have run up too much too fast in anticipation of the impact of President Trump’s tax reforms…..The Bank of England likely also fueled some concerns that central banks worldwide would boost interest rates.”

On the Financial Independence Hub, Adrian Mastracci wrote that although you may be rattled by the correction, Diversification keeps your nest egg on the rails. He explained that diversification among asset classes, economic regions, time to maturity, foreign currencies and investment quality increases the odds of you being right more often than wrong. When some selections are suffering, others can step up and help cushion the rest of your portfolio.

For example, the diversified Saskatchewan Pension Plan Balanced Fund is professionally-managed by Greystone Managed Investments and Leith Wheeler Investment Counsel. As of December 31, 2017 the balanced fund portfolio is invested as follows:

• 30.6%: Bonds and mortgages
• 19.3%: International equities
• 19.2%: Canadian equities
• 18.8%: U.S. equities
• 10.2%: Real estate
• 1.9%: Money market

SPP has rated the volatility of this fund as low to medium. Nevertheless, the fund does not have any return guarantees.

The Globe and Mail’s Rob Carrick offers reasons why you should be grateful for the market freakout. “The markets are likely to be ornery for the next while, but there’s no need for radical surgery on properly diversified portfolios of stocks, bonds and cash that you’re holding for the long term,” he says. “Think about strategically adding stocks, not subtracting. After any big market decline, put a little money into quality stocks or exchange-traded funds and mutual funds that hold them.”

On the HuffPost Ann Brenoff addresses How To Handle A Stock Market Drop When You’re Retired. She acknowledges that for retirees or those close to retirement recent market gyrations are gut-wrenching. She comments, “Even those in their 60s likely have many investment years ahead of them. And with that length of time, you will have plenty of opportunity to recover from these types of market drops, she said. The key, though, is staying invested.” Brenoff also points out that if you were invested even just a few months ago, there’s an excellent chance you’re still ahead despite two days of falling prices.

Several months ago Ian McGugan’s column in the Globe and Mail suggests Five things to do if you’re nearing or in retirement and fearing a market pullback. He cites several takeaways from Wade Pfau, an economist at American College in Philadelphia:

1. If you’ve won, stop gambling.
2. Plan for lower returns.
3. Think safety, not wealth.
4. Consider alternatives such as annuities.

Pfau also recommends you ask yourself two questions if you are in doubt whether to stay heavily invested in the stock market: “How would you feel if your wealth doubled? How would you feel if your wealth fell in half? “Most people find the prospect of losing a substantial part of their portfolio far outweighs the possible pleasure of having substantially more,” he said.

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Do you follow blogs with terrific ideas for saving money that haven’t been mentioned in our weekly “Best from the blogosphere?” Share the information on http://wp.me/P1YR2T-JR and your name will be entered in a quarterly draw for a gift card.

Written by Sheryl Smolkin
	Sheryl Smolkin LLB., LLM is a retired pension lawyer and President of Sheryl Smolkin & Associates Ltd. For over a decade, she has enjoyed a successful encore career as a freelance writer specializing in retirement, employee benefits and workplace issues. Sheryl and her husband Joel are empty-nesters, residing in Toronto with their cockapoo Rufus.

I don’t know about you, but on these long cold winter nights, all I want to do is curl up on the couch under a blanket and binge on Netflix. But before you do, check out our latest collection of personal finance videos, both old and new. After all, a picture is worth 1,000 words!

If like me, you still haven’t figured out what the fuss is about bitcoin and other digital currency, Bridget Casey from Money After Graduation answers these question in a three -minute crash course: What is cryptocurrency? How does blockchain work? Does cryptocurrency have a place in your long-term investment portfolio? Why are Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and all the other cryptocurrencies is so popular and what are you supposed to do with them?

Three moms (Gillian Irving, Monika Jazyk, and Rachel Oliver) who are also real estate investors bring their expertise to the table as they interview Canada’s leading experts on creating wealth and financial security through real estate investing. On this episode: guest Sean Cooper (beginning at 7:40) , best-selling author of “Burn Your Mortgage” and a personal finance expert famous for paying off his home mortgage after just 3 years discusses the pros and cons of paying off a #mortgage when interest rates are so low and how people with kids can pay off their mortgage faster.

On Let’s Talk Investing, a joint project of Globe Investor and the Investor Education Fund, Rob Carrick interviews Gordon Pape about what investments you should hold in your TFSA. Pape says it really depends on what you want to use the plan for. He says there’s nothing wrong with using it as an emergency fund and investing it in low risk securities. However if you want to use it to maximize retirement savings, Pape suggests going to a brokerage firm and setting up a self-directed TFSA.

You have recently been declined for life insurance. What are your options? Lorne Marr, director of business at LSM Insurance says the first thing to find out is why you were turned down. If you were declined for a significant reason like cancer, a heart attack or diabetes, you may want to look at a no medical life insurance policy. These policies fall into two categories: guaranteed issue coverage and simplified coverage.

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Do you follow blogs with terrific ideas for saving money that haven’t been mentioned in our weekly “Best from the blogosphere?” Share the information on http://wp.me/P1YR2T-JR and your name will be entered in a quarterly draw for a gift card.

Written by Sheryl Smolkin
	Sheryl Smolkin LLB., LLM is a retired pension lawyer and President of Sheryl Smolkin & Associates Ltd. For over a decade, she has enjoyed a successful encore career as a freelance writer specializing in retirement, employee benefits and workplace issues. Sheryl and her husband Joel are empty-nesters, residing in Toronto with their cockapoo Rufus.

Welcome to a wonderful New Year. Most of the country has spent the last few weeks in a deep freeze with Saskatoon temperatures dipping below -30 C. It’s even -21 C in Toronto!

Nevertheless, residents of Spy Hill, Saskatchewan where the temperature was -43 with the wind chill on Christmas morning displayed their very warm hearts when they sprang to action on Christmas Day to help passengers on a frozen train.

Here is what a few of our favourite personal finance writers have been writing about during the holidays.

Jonathan Chevreau on the Financial Independence Hub reviewed the New York Times best seller Younger Next Year – Live Strong, Fit and Sexy Until You’re 80 and Beyond. Chevreau said, “The book is all about taking control of your personal longevity, chiefly  through proper nutrition but first and foremost by engaging in daily exercise: aerobic activity at least four days a week and weight training for another two days a week — week in and week out, for the rest of your life.”

Boomer & Echo’s Robb Engen wrote Save More Tomorrow: The Procrastinator’s Guide To Saving Money. He discussed behavioural economists Shlomo Benartzi and Richard Thaler’s Save More Tomorrow program which not only suggests that monthly savings be automated but that savings rates be automatically increased when individuals get raises or earn more money from side hacks or freelance gigs.

Bridget Casey from Money After Graduation encouraged readers to see through their financial blind spots. “Reducing your spending and increasing your income by any amount is always good for your net worth, but if you’re looking to get the most bang for your buck, your efforts should be directed towards major wins ahead of small victories. A good exercise is to identify the three largest expenses in your budget and try to reduce them by 15% each or more,” she suggests.

Barry Choi explained on Money We Have why he is changing careers after 18 years. It was hard to walk away from a well-paid job in television but with a young baby, working the 3 PM to midnight shift was no longer sustainable. He got a part-time position as an editor for RateHub three days a week and he plans to continue writing for a variety of travel and other publications. Although he took a pay cut to leave his full-time position, his financial advisor helped him to realize he doesn’t need to make nearly as much as he thought to maintain the family’s lifestyle.

And finally, Globe and Mail personal finance columnist Rob Carrick offers the following  eight dos and don’ts for your personal finances in 2018:

• DO brace for higher borrowing costs.
• DON’T expect much improvement on savings rates.
• DO expect more hysteria about cryptocurrencies
• DON’T buy in unless you have the right mindset
• DO be cautious with your investment portfolio
• DON’T forget bonds or GICs
• DO emphasize fees as a controllable factor in your investing
• DON’T forget the value proposition

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Do you follow blogs with terrific ideas for saving money that haven’t been mentioned in our weekly “Best from the blogosphere?” Share the information on http://wp.me/P1YR2T-JR and your name will be entered in a quarterly draw for a gift card.

Written by Sheryl Smolkin
	Sheryl Smolkin LLB., LLM is a retired pension lawyer and President of Sheryl Smolkin & Associates Ltd. For over a decade, she has enjoyed a successful encore career as a freelance writer specializing in retirement, employee benefits and workplace issues. Sheryl and her husband Joel are empty-nesters, residing in Toronto with their cockapoo Rufus.

It seems impossible that is our last Best from the Blogosphere for the year. The next one is slated for January 8, 2018! I wish all savewithspp.com readers a very happy, healthy holiday season and a new year full of promise and exciting adventures.

If you are starting to think about tax season already, you will really appreciate Janine Rogan’s Professional CRA Hacks. With only 36% of calls actually answered it’s no wonder Canadians are frustrated with the tax system. Furthermore, up to 30% of the time the tax information you receive from an agent may be incorrect, which is as concerning for taxpayers as it is for professionals. A few of her hints are:

• Hit redial 10x in a row.
• Call the French line but ask for help in English.
• Ask for your agent’s direct number and agent ID.

On another income tax-related matter, Andy Blatchford reports in The Toronto Star that during the election campaign, the Liberals promised to expand the Home Buyers’ Plan to allow those affected by major life events — death of a spouse, divorce or taking in an elderly relative — to borrow a down payment from their RRSPs without incurring a penalty.

However, a June briefing note for Finance Minister Bill Morneau ahead of his meeting with the Canadian Real Estate Association lays out the government’s concerns that low interest rates and rising home prices have encouraged many Canadians to amass high levels of debt just so they can enter the real-estate market. “Policies to further boost home ownership by stimulating demand would also exert more pressure on house prices,” says the memo,

Firecracker writes about The Five Stages of Early Retirement on Millenial Revolution. According to the self-styled youngest retiree in Canada (age 31), these stages are:

• Stage 1: The Count Down (1-2 years before early retirement)
• Stage 2: Honeymoon (0 – 6 months after retirement)
• Stage 3: Identity Crisis (7 months – 1.5 years after retirement)
• Stage 4: The New You (1-2 years after retirement)
• Stage 5: Smooth Sailing (2+ years after retirement)
  

The Globe and Mail’s Rob Carrick considers the new retirement era and questions How many years past 65 will you work? Carrick says, “Retiring later is bound to be seen as negative, but it’s actually quite unremarkable unless you have a physically demanding job or hate your work. Previous generations may have retired at 65 and lived an extra 10 or 15 years. Retire at 70 today and you might look forward to another 15 or 20 years.”   

And finally, Tom Drake at maplemoney goes back to basics and provides a Guide to Guaranteed Investment Certificates. GICs are a form of investment where you agree to lend money to a bank for a set amount of time. The bank agrees to pay you a certain percentage of interest to borrow this money. You are guaranteed a return as long as you keep your money in the bank for a specified period. Terms on GICs generally run from as little as 90 days to as much as 10 years. “It’s important to weigh the pros and cons of GICs. While you probably don’t want to  build an entire portfolio of GICs (especially if you are trying to build a nest egg), they do have their place in a diversified portfolio,” Drake says.

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Do you follow blogs with terrific ideas for saving money that haven’t been mentioned in our weekly “Best from the blogosphere?” Share the information on http://wp.me/P1YR2T-JR and your name will be entered in a quarterly draw for a gift card.

Written by Sheryl Smolkin
	Sheryl Smolkin LLB., LLM is a retired pension lawyer and President of Sheryl Smolkin & Associates Ltd. For over a decade, she has enjoyed a successful encore career as a freelance writer specializing in retirement, employee benefits and workplace issues. Sheryl and her husband Joel are empty-nesters, residing in Toronto with their cockapoo Rufus.

I had the pleasure of attending the 2017 Canadian Personal Finance Conference in Toronto in late November. It was a great opportunity to renew friendships with bloggers and financial writers from across the country. Here’s what some of them have been writing about lately.

Rob Carrick from the Globe and Mail writes about How e-transfers are ousting paper cheques. Isn’t that the truth! Since I started my writing business almost 10 years ago I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of cheques I have written. I use e-transfers almost daily.

On Money We Have, Toronto-based personal finance expert Barry Choi discusses the ins and outs of churning credit cards in Canada. Applying for credit cards to get bonus points and cancelling them soon after can affect your credit score but Choi says, “You could apply for 2-3 credit cards in one month and it probably wouldn’t be a big deal. Just don’t do it every month, and don’t apply for a ton of cards if you plan on getting a mortgage soon. Lenders will wonder why you need access to so much credit.”

Mr. CBB reports on how Mrs. CBB saved their Christmas budget $400 by shopping on line so far. She purchased a toy for a discounted price on Amazon Prime which was reduced by 50% on Black Friday but it would have cost $7.99 to return. Amazon customer service sent her a return label so she could by two new ones (one for a gift) for the same price. She also managed to purchase $600 worth of clothing for just under $200.

Wayne Roth on Retire Happy considers whether you should annuitize your retirement income. He is generally not a fan of annuities but acknowledges that an annuity can be useful for creating a secure source of retirement income. You lose some upside potential but an annuity allows you to eliminate major investment risks and it provides income that you cannot outlive – no matter how long you survive. Risk-adverse people don’t mind missing on those large gains in order to gain protection on the downside.

And finally, on another note, if you are in the Saskatoon area from now until January 7^th, don’t miss the BHP Billiton Enchanted Forest Holiday Light Tour. It is one of Canada’s most spectacular drive-thru Christmas Light Shows and Saskatchewan’s top winter visitor attraction. 2.5km of animated light displays are scattered throughout an urban forest. Proceeds go to Saskatoon City Hospital Foundation and Saskatoon Zoo Foundation.

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Do you follow blogs with terrific ideas for saving money that haven’t been mentioned in our weekly “Best from the blogosphere?” Share the information on http://wp.me/P1YR2T-JR and your name will be entered in a quarterly draw for a gift card.

Written by Sheryl Smolkin
	Sheryl Smolkin LLB., LLM is a retired pension lawyer and President of Sheryl Smolkin & Associates Ltd. For over a decade, she has enjoyed a successful encore career as a freelance writer specializing in retirement, employee benefits and workplace issues. Sheryl and her husband Joel are empty-nesters, residing in Toronto with their cockapoo Rufus.

Tim  Stobbs from CanadianDreamFree at 45 who met his FIRE (financial independence retire early) goal several months ago recently wrote:

“One particular lesson that has really hit home for me since I early retired is this: FIRE doesn’t change your core personality.  You see I had this lovely fantasy in my head that I would be more active and perhaps start exercising regularly when I left work. I would run or do yoga like every other day.  Of course, I’ve never made working out a priority earlier in life so this really hasn’t changed that much since I retired.” 

That must be why over 12 years since I left my corporate job and a year into semi-retirement my closets could still use a good cleaning and I struggle to make it to the gym three times a week.

That also may explain Why being rich makes people anxious. Kerry Hannon from the New York Times reports in The Toronto Star that multi-millionaire Thomas Gallagher who is retired from his position as vice chairman of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce World Markets says, “Emotionally, I don’t come from money; I got very lucky on Wall Street. I have more money than I had ever imagined, but I still worry — do I have enough, if I live longer than I thought?”

And financial anxiety among Canadians is not only surprisingly pervasive and but not limited to the very rich or the very poor.  Rob Carrick in the Globe and Mail discusses a survey by Seymour Management Consulting which reveals that One in two Canadians is a bundle of nerves about money. Low-income people are most stressed, but one in three people with incomes of $100,000 or more are on the list of worriers.

So How do you know when it is the right time to retire? Retire Happy’s Jim Yih says retirement readiness is not tangible. He notes that one of the most significant trends is that more and more people want to work in retirement, plan to work in retirement and/or are being pulled into work in retirement.

“There are more opportunities than ever to work in retirement.  In fact the new terminology that is not so new anymore is the idea of planning a PHASED RETIREMENT or a TRANSITIONAL RETIREMENT. Personally, I think it’s great and I think a lot of people are finding success with this idea,” he comments.

Retired actuary Anna Rappaport identifies the same trend in an opinion piece Moving To The Next Step: Reboot, Rewire, Or Retire? for Forbes. She suggests that while many people may seek to continue working at traditional jobs into their 70s or 80s, others may wish to leave their career positions to build new career paths. People who held senior roles during their careers often find rewarding a period of professional activity with less responsibility, before totally leaving the labor force. Some seek memberships on corporate and/or nonprofit boards. Other people seek volunteer or not-for-profit roles, working in areas that are meaningful to them.

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Do you follow blogs with terrific ideas for saving money that haven’t been mentioned in our weekly “Best from the blogosphere?” Share the information on http://wp.me/P1YR2T-JR and your name will be entered in a quarterly draw for a gift card.

Written by Sheryl Smolkin
	Sheryl Smolkin LLB., LLM is a retired pension lawyer and President of Sheryl Smolkin & Associates Ltd. For over a decade, she has enjoyed a successful encore career as a freelance writer specializing in retirement, employee benefits and workplace issues. Sheryl and her husband Joel are empty-nesters, residing in Toronto with their cockapoo Rufus.

It’s personal finance video time again! This week we present timely videos about extended warranties, the Equifax security breach, the new mortgage stress test and more.

In the wake of the pending demise of Sears, Jacqueline Hansen from CBC Business News reports on what it means for customers with extended warranties.

Rob Carrick outlines the steps Canadian should take to deal with the Equifax security breach which exposed the personal information of tens of thousands of people

Do you think you should be earning more at your job? Bridget Casey from Money After graduation has some hints about how to ask for a raise in her video “How to Negotiate Your Salary | ASK FOR $5,000+ MORE.”

This video from The National explores how the new mortgage stress test for borrowers with uninsured loans is designed to ensure they can withstand higher mortgage rates.

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Do you follow blogs with terrific ideas for saving money that haven’t been mentioned in our weekly “Best from the blogosphere?” Share the information on http://wp.me/P1YR2T-JR and your name will be entered in a quarterly draw for a gift card.

Written by Sheryl Smolkin
	Sheryl Smolkin LLB., LLM is a retired pension lawyer and President of Sheryl Smolkin & Associates Ltd. For over a decade, she has enjoyed a successful encore career as a freelance writer specializing in retirement, employee benefits and workplace issues. Sheryl and her husband Joel are empty-nesters, residing in Toronto with their cockapoo Rufus.