In Live Your Best Retirement, author Ramon Reid begins by expressing concern for those who are not happy in their so-called golden years. The book then provides ways to turn things around for that group.

As he began his own retirement, he noticed “a worrying trend in people who had retired. A lot were lost and unfocussed or even worse – they seemed angry that retirement hadn’t delivered the goods.” Worse, he continues, they didn’t know what to do about it.

He and his wife, on the other hand, had a plan when they retired early. “We (had) a number of key projects in mind, are active physically as keen gardeners, cyclists and kayakers, are emotionally centred with regular meetups with friends and family and are intellectually stimulated as part-time business and management consultants.”

In other words, he writes, “we made purposeful decisions about how we wanted to live our third age.”

Those on the verge of retiring, he advises, don’t “want to drift aimlessly in a sea of indecision” about the years ahead. They instead need to be “prepared for more than one option,” and to be able to “learn fast or adapt.” Having a plan for the years ahead allows you to “look forward to the future with excitement and not look back in grief.”

The book gives dozens of real-life examples of how individuals and couples coped with retirement and its precursor processes, like planning.

The transition to retirement “can be tough,” he writes. “For some retirees, the reality of retirement is a far cry from their expectations and often leads to disillusionment and deep unhappiness.” Further, he continues, a surprising 40 per cent of Americans reverse their decision to retire.

That’s because they don’t have a purpose for retirement. “Finding purpose in life means different things to people. The quest assumes an even greater urgency once you enter the third age of your life,” he writes. “For some, it is about fulfilling a passion; for others, it is unearthing a passion they did not know they had.” He suggests that volunteering in retirement is a “transformative” action for retirees seeing purpose.

In a chapter on personal growth and learning, he notes that “retirement is not the end but the beginning of a new appreciation of the wonders of life.”

“The trick,” he writes, “is teasing out the reward of a hobby, or learning a new skill, even a language, that occupies your mind 100 per cent. Take comfort in the research that shows, time and again, that your growth is achieved by challenging yourself.”

Examples of things to learn in retirement, he writes, include a new language, music, strategic game playing, dancing, acting, cycling and pottery.

“Be curious, be active,” he advises. “You have as much to offer the community as the community has to offer you.”

He concludes his optimistic book by advising retirees to find “like minded others” by joining classes or groups. “Start small and build on your options,” he suggests. “Do something positive at the start of every day.” Be careful what you are eating – cut back on processed foods, sugar and alcohol, he advises.

“Just do it, start doing something, anything, today. Take the first step, the others will follow. Stepping out will become easier each day, just as your confidence and capability does.”

This is a fantastic and motivating book. The move from work to retirement can be jarring and sad if you haven’t thought about what to do with all that time, and while the focus with pre-retirement seems to always be on money, it’s really more important to be active and to try new things, as Ramon Reid says so well.

Changing jobs? Your SPP account is ready to make the move with you. Since you can join SPP as an individual, changing employers doesn’t affect your eligibility to continue contributions – you can keep going on your retirement savings no matter where you’re working. And, once those contributions have been professionally invested in SPP’s low-cost pooled fund, you’ll enjoy – at retirement – options that include a lifetime monthly annuity payment or the more flexible Variable Benefit option.

Get SPP working for you today!

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Canadians starting to think about retirements stretching beyond their 80s

There was a time when one worked until age 65, got the gold watch, received a pension for perhaps 10 years, and then passed away.

But now, reports Business In Vancouver, “rising life expectancies are extending Canadians’ financial horizons” to their 80s and even beyond.

In an interview with RBC’s Howard Kabot, the publication says there’s a new trend “that sees financial plans being adjusted to accommodate longer lifespans.”

Kabot tells Business in Vancouver that many clients are fine-tuning their investment plans to factor in the idea that they’ll still be healthy and active in their 80s and beyond.

In the past, he states in the article, people assumed “they would slow down by the time they were 80, choosing to stay closer to home.” Today, he points out, “clients are now opting to travel and stay active into their 80s, postponing those plans until their 90s.”

“The population is getting healthier and they are living longer,” Kabot tells Business In Vancouver. “When they needed a financial plan in the past, it was a standard to have enough money to get to 90. Now, we’re easily using 100.”

Let’s let that last bit sink in – planning to get to 100!

So what does that type of planning look like?

The article says there is an emphasis on “making money last longer” so that there’s funding for moving to a retirement home, or perhaps making changes in order to be able to age at home.

An article in The Globe and Mail looks at some of the factors to consider when tweaking your financial plan to include longevity.

The article says that while fixed income investments from things like “defined benefit pension plans and annuities” will ensure you don’t run out of money, you still want to diversify your portfolio so that you are getting growth to counter future inflation.

You also need to be careful with how much you withdraw from your savings each year, the article says, citing the “four per cent” rule as a fairly safe way to ensure you don’t use up your savings too quickly.

The article makes a strong case for annuities.

“An annuity (typically) involves an agreement between an individual and an insurance company, where the person makes payments in return for an income flow typically throughout their retirement years. (They) can be valuable for managing longevity risk, especially for older retirees with even more years under their belt.”

Members of the Saskatchewan Pension Plan have the option of converting some or all of their SPP savings into an annuity at retirement. The SPP Retirement Guide lays out the annuity options that are available – the life only annuity (monthly income for you for life), the refund life annuity (same, but any balance of the amount you provide for the annuity that is not paid out to you by your death is paid to a beneficiary) and the joint and last survivor annuity, where a surviving “spouse or common law partner” will receive a monthly annuity on your death.

Check out SPP today!

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We often hear from fellow seniors about the advantages of going to one vehicle versus two – and the money they’re saving.

Save with SPP decided to take a look around to see what’s up with this thinking.

An article from a few years back by Rob Carrick of The Globe and Mail suggests that going to one car – particularly in your later years – can really pay off.

“Take two working parents, add kids and you have a strong convenience-based case for paying the many costs of owning and maintaining a pair of vehicles. Add a home in the suburbs and the argument gets even stronger,” he writes.

“But owning two cars stops making so much sense later in life. In retirement, you can save a bundle by going down to one vehicle,” he reports.

The article quotes Sylvia Thys, an associate financial planner at Caring for Clients, as showing how planning to “downsize” to one car could add hundreds of thousands of dollars to a couple’s net worth in retirement.

“By adding the money (spent on a second vehicle) saved to their investments, the couple would have two extra years of living in their home before it had to be sold to generate retirement income. Their net worth would increase by a future value of $678,000 at age 95,” Thys states in the article.

Wow. The article notes that a typical couple spends $1,000 per month on each car they own, buying a new car every 10 years and spending “$30,000 to $35,000 a vehicle.” (Five years later, this number is probably more like $50,000.)

And it’s not just financing a car, the article adds – insurance can costs $1,000 per year per vehicle, with maintenance costing even more than that. Going to one car cuts those costs in half, the article concludes.

The Dollar Stretcher blog cites a few further examples culled from the blog’s readers.

Lisa H. of Aloha, Ore., tells the blog her family switched to one car “a few years ago” and have since saved $6,000 “counting payments and maintenance. There are not many times we wish we had two cars, and we are always able to make do.” She says other ways to get around can be tapped when needed – public transportation, ride-sharing services, or getting a lift from a friend.

Reader Laura says Dad can often take the bus or ride to work with a colleague when she needs the car. Mom also can chauffeur him to the office when she needs the wheels, a “great way to get Mom up and ready for the day.”

The Money Smart Guides blog says that while going to one vehicle may not work for everyone, it has great financial benefits.

Savings go far beyond going to one monthly car payment from two, the blog notes.

“You’ll also save money on car insurance, oil changes, vehicle maintenance, and fuel costs,” the blog advises. “Depending on your living situation, having one vehicle could mean you don’t have to pay for a second parking space, too. Don’t forget about the taxes, the registration, the emissions tests in some places, and even car washes,” the blog adds.

We can add personal testimony to this money-saving argument. We went to one vehicle around 2009 – at that time, one of us worked during the week in Toronto and then came home to Ottawa on weekends by train. There was no point having a car in downtown Toronto – parking was crazy expensive even then, traffic was brutal, and you could take the subway/streetcar/bus system anywhere, or cab it, or walk.

These days in Ottawa we share one car, and while we very occasionally have conflicting agendas, it works out. One car payment, one insurance payment, one car to fuel up, one license plate to pay for.

The money that you can save by going to one vehicle can boost your savings. And if you are saving for retirement on your own, perhaps the savings can be directed to a Saskatchewan Pension Plan account. SPP makes saving for retirement easy, because they do the “heavy lifting” of investing your savings for you. SPP’s low-cost, expert investment in a pooled fund has benefited retirement savers for nearly 40 years. At retirement, you can choose between receiving a monthly lifetime annuity payment, or the more flexible Variable Benefit option.

Check out SPP today!

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Women must take action to avoid the “retirement gap” later in life

For every dollar a man gets in retirement, a woman gets just 83 cents – “a gap of 17 per cent,” reports Diane Peters, writing in The Globe and Mail.

“The gender pay gap is the gift that keeps on giving,” she writes. “Women make less than men during their working years and that differential continues into retirement.”

The 17 per cent gap, Peters reports, is cited in a 2024 report from Ontario’s Pay Equity Office.

When defining the income at play for calculating the gap, the article notes, the report refers to “government pensions, workplace pensions and personal savings.”

One might think that the disparity in wages/income between men and women has got better over time, but in fact, Peters writes, that’s not the case.

“The gap is larger than it was nearly 50 years ago. In 1976, the first year researchers were able to find meaningful statistics, the gap stood at 15 per cent,” she adds.

Janine Rogan, the Calgary-based author of The Pink Tax: A Financial System Designed To Keep Women Broke, says there are still steps women can take to avoid the effects of the gap.

“I think it’s important to connect these ideas so we [can] understand how insidious it is to gain and grow your wealth as a woman,” she tells The Globe.

 “Knowledge is really powerful. When you’re aware of [the gap], you can make different decisions,” she states in the article.

The article looks at the causes of the gap.

A big cause, writes Peters, is the general pay gap “which stands at 28 per cent in Canada.” In other words, women make less than men during their careers.

As well, the article points out, “women also contribute less to workplace pensions, personal savings, and contribution-based government programs such as the Canada Pension Plan – and these, on average, make up 78 per cent of a Canadian’s income in retirement.”

Taking time off to have kids also hampers retirement savings efforts, the article explains.

Women who take time off work to have children earn less, a fact the article calls “the motherhood wage penalty.”

Finally, women tend to spend more on their families.

“Oftentimes, it’s the woman’s responsibility to pay for childcare or summer camp or school [supplies]. He often pays the mortgage,” Rogan tells The Globe. “It may go unnoticed when women give their kids lunch money or run to the drugstore run for an aging parent. But those costs deplete women’s ability to save,” the article notes.

OK, making less, saving less (due to lower income), earning less while having kids and spending more on them as they grow. Quite the list.

So, what can women do?

The article quotes Leony deGraff Hastings, a certified financial planner from Burlington, Ont., as saying women should take full advantage of any pension of registered retirement savings plan through work where contributions are matched by the employer.

As well, if you are taking time away from work, perhaps to have a child, many employer pension programs allow you to “buy back” that time, and make pension contributions when you are back in respect of the time you were away.

Know all the rules of any workplace retirement program you are part of, she tells The Globe, adding that “financial literacy is vital for retirement planning.”

Don’t be afraid to accompany your husband when he meets with financial planners, or to get your own, the article adds.

If you don’t have a workplace retirement program to join, the Saskatchewan Pension Plan may be just what you are looking for. Once you have an account with SPP, you decide how much to save – you can start small and gear up as your income increases – and SPP does the heavy lifting of investing those contributions. When it’s time to collect, you can choose among such options as a monthly annuity payment for life, or the more flexible Variable Benefit option.

Check out SPP today!

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Some mistakes to avoid on the road to retirement

Our parents tell us that every mistake we make is also a learning opportunity – by doing the wrong thing, the path to the right thing is illuminated for us.

With that in mind, Save with SPP took to the Information Superhighway to see what retirement whoppers people have experienced, and maybe, what they learned from those mistakes.

CTV’s Christopher Liew suggests that “starting too late” on retirement savings and planning is a top mistake to avoid.

“If you want to build a substantial retirement fund, time is your greatest ally. The longer your retirement savings have to grow and earn compounding interest, the more you’ll have when it’s time to step back and start your retirement,” he writes.

Another mistake to watch out for is “failing to diversify your investments,” he adds.

“Putting all your retirement eggs in one basket can be a risky game. Diversification is key to balancing the risk and returns in your investment portfolio. Failing to diversify can expose your retirement savings to market volatility and specific sector risks, potentially derailing your long-term plans,” Liew notes.

Spread your retirement investments across “different asset classes such as stocks, bonds, and cash equivalents,” he suggests.

A third mistake Liew identifies is “underestimating your retirement expenses.” It’s hard to set a savings target if you’re not clear on what your expenses will be once work is done, he continues. “Retirement often brings its own set of financial demands, ranging from healthcare costs to leisure activities. Underestimating these can lead to financial strain, potentially forcing you to dip into savings faster than you anticipated,” he writes.

The Bellwether Investment Management blog provides a few more things to watch out for.

“Avoid taking on new debts,” the blog advises retirees. “This one may seem obvious, but it should still be addressed. Do not take on new debts. By the time you reach retirement you should have already settled them. While everyone is under different circumstances and you may already have open lines of credit, what is ultimately more important is not incurring new ones,” the blog advises.

“In a study published by Statistics Canada that investigated senior families and their finances, there has been a startling pattern beginning to emerge. Between 1999 and 2016, the rate of indebted families rose drastically from 27 per cent to 42 per cent. Worse yet, the median amount owed went from $9,000 to $25,000,” the blog advises.

Another common mistake is trying to do everything yourself in a complex retirement world where you have multiple sources of income, investments to draw down, more complex tax problems, all while you are getting older and a little less energetic.

Consider the help of a finance professional, the blog advises.

“Although many individuals have done well in taking care of their finances personally, there may come a point in their lives where they no longer have the desire to do so. In other cases, situations may arise where the surviving spouse isn’t familiar with the complex details of their portfolio which can lead to undue stress for their financial (and emotional) well-being,” the blog advises. Professional help is a call away, the blog reminds us.

The Motley Fool blog adds another good one.

“Not planning for longevity” is a major retirement planning error, the blog notes.

“The average life span in Canada is almost 82 years. But a decent percentage manages to live past 90, and some even farther than that. But a long life might not necessarily be a happy life if you are running out of cash faster than you run out of breath. While it’s vital that you save and invest as much as you can, planning for longevity requires taking other decisions as well, like buying a whole-life annuity to augment life-long government pensions,” the blog notes.

The Saskatchewan Pension Plan ticks the boxes on several of these concerns. You can start early on your SPP savings, and your hard-saved retirement money will be invested professionally in a diversified, professionally managed pooled fund. And if you are worried about running out of money (by living a long happy life), SPP’s annuity options deliver you monthly income for life, no matter how many candles they cram onto that birthday cake.

Check out SPP today!

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A man with a pension – that does impress her much!

Singles out there, take note – having a pension may be worth more to you than you think!

According to a recent article in Business Insider by Nicola Prentis, you may get more attention if you list a “pension” as one of your attributes on your dating profile.

“I ask men if they have a pension before I seriously date them,” she writes. “`Have you got a pension?’ isn’t the first question I ask a date but it’s high on my list if I’m considering an actual relationship,” she continues.

“It’s not about how much they earn, and I’m not looking for someone rich. In my opinion, a low-earning saver, like me, is actually much better off financially than a high-earning spender with no safety net. But I have to ask about pensions to really find out where our future is heading as a couple,” Prentis explains.

So why is having a pension more attractive to her than having big bucks? Let’s read on.

“One guy I dated had his own business and earned four times more than me. He kept offering to buy me flights to visit him, sent me expensive flowers, and had a penchant for buying anything in the grocery store labeled `finest,’” she writes.

“Big spenders make me uneasy because I don’t enjoy extravagance and I’m happier living simply. But my fears were confirmed when I asked him the pension question,” Prentis tells us.

It turned out that, at 50, he had no emergency fund to call on, no pension, and no investments. Even more telling about how the balance of our future relationship would be was when he added, `I don’t understand all that stuff but I’m happy for you to manage it for me,’” she writes.

“That was my cue to end it. No relationship can work if one person is always the `fun police’ and has to do all the labour because the other can’t be bothered to learn. I ended it and truly hope he put that flower money toward a pension,” Prentis notes.

Her article tells the tale of another prospective date who, while equipped with an impressive collection of high-end running shoes, had no pension. His retort – “who knows how long we have to live” – did not impress her, the article adds.

Prentis says she feels this way because, as a single mom “who had her head in the sand for years” about retirement savings, she finally sorted things out a few years ago. She makes small contributions to her retirement savings account each month that are automated, so that she doesn’t forget to contribute and stays on track.

Now that she has taken control of her personal finances and long-term retirement savings, the article continues, she has recognized that “attitudes toward money are one of the most persistent and destructive factors in relationship issues. That’s a clear theme when I look back at my past relationships. Disagreements about money caused more than just arguments. They brought a feeling of distance from a partner because their beliefs and behaviors around money were so alien to me,” she writes.

“So when I’m asking if a guy has a pension, what I’m really asking is: `Are you thinking about the future or just about enjoying today?’ It’s not that there’s anything wrong with living in the moment. After all, I get that `you can’t take it with you’ and `there’s no point being the richest person in the cemetery.’ But, to me, I can enjoy the present more if it’s not ruined by worrying about what will happen later if I don’t have money.”

It’s an interesting perspective on the importance of retirement savings.

If you are fortunate enough to have a retirement savings program through your workplace, make sure you are contributing to the max. If you don’t – or you want to augment what you have – the Saskatchewan Pension Plan may be just the program you’ve been looking for. You can decide how much you want to contribute, and how often – your contributions can be made through pre-authorized transfers from your bank account, or by setting SPP as a bill through online banking and paying that way, or even via a credit card.

The heavy lifting of investing for retirement will then be in the capable hands of SPP, who will grow your contributions in a pooled, professionally managed pooled fund. At retirement, you can choose from options like a lifetime monthly SPP annuity, or the flexible Variable Benefit option.

Check out SPP today!

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Super Agers – why do some folks thrive well into their 100s?

We always hear stories – from family, perhaps, or on the news – about a little old person who is not only alive and well past age 100, but thriving, with a sharp mind, fit body, and glowing health.

What’s behind the fact that some of us do so well at aging? Save with SPP decided to take a look around to find out.

A recent article by The Canadian Press tells the story of Angeline Charlebois of Levack, Ont., who at 105 “spends Tuesday afternoons in town playing cards with her friends at the golden age club, often bringing home-baked treats to share with her friends. Charlebois is an avid reader and loves to sew. She makes hats for babies at the nearby hospital — having picked up knitting as a new hobby when she was 100 years old.”

“She’s extremely social, and says she likes to have a drink on the weekends with her family. She’s partial to beer or rye and water, and she puts Irish cream in her coffee after mass every Sunday,” the article continues.

“She’s used to people who are astounded by her energy and good health at 105 years old,” CP reports. “I don’t really have a secret, it’s just good, plain living,” she tells CP.

Researcher Angela Roberts describes Charlebois as a “super ager,” or someone “80 and older that has the memory of someone 20 to 30 years younger.”

Roberts, the article says, is involved in a study on the topic of super agers involving Western University and four U.S. colleges. The research has found a few factors that seem to help people thrive into their 100s and beyond.

“Human connection, seeing and being with other people face-to-face, feeding off the emotional exchange is really important,” she said.

“We see this depth of social connection as perhaps being a defining piece of exceptional cognitive aging, and indeed that aligns with research that shows that social isolation is harmful in aging and can lead to dementia and contribute to cognitive decline,” she tells CP.

A story posted on the U.S. government’s National Institute on Aging website says research in the States has shown that super agers have more resilient brains than many of us.

“Physically, the brains of cognitive super agers seem to defy wear and tear better than the average brain,” the article notes, citing research from Chicago’s Northwestern University.

“Comparisons revealed that the cingulate cortex, a brain region considered important for the integration of information related to memory, attention, cognitive control, and motivation was thicker in super agers than in their same-age peers and showed no atrophy compared with the same brain region of the middle agers. In fact, a specific region of the anterior cingulate cortex was significantly thicker in the brains of cognitive super agers than in middle agers’ brains,” the article adds.

A flurry of research studies are trying to find out why some brains age better than others, the article continues.

Is there anything we can do in the here and now to boost the strength of our brains? Or the rest of us?

An article from Harvard Health Publishing suggests there are also physical “super agers” whose bodies “have an aerobic capacity of people 30 years younger.”

“Some studies have indicated that people in their 80s who exercised at high intensity for 20 to 45 minutes a day have an aerobic capacity of people 30 years younger,” Harvard’s Dr. J. Andrew Taylor states in the article.

The article suggests a number of steps we can all take to boost our brainpower and physical fitness as we age:

• Embrace mental challenges, such as puzzles and math games. Volunteer with a goal of trying and learning new things, the article adds, or leisure activities you haven’t done before.
• Increase your exercise capacity, and try to work out at a higher level for 20 to 40 minutes, three to five days a week, the article suggests.
• Prepare to be frustrated as you learn new activities – that’s OK, the article tells us.
• Don’t let you age deter you: some famous painters like Mary Robertson “Grandma” Moses did not start painting until their late 70s, the article notes.
• Get going with a group, since taking part in new activities with a group of other people builds social connections as well as putting you in a group of like-minded beginners, the article concludes.

If you’re planning to be around for the long haul, you’ll need to make sure you have adequate retirement savings.

The Saskatchewan Pension Plan is a great resource to help you build and grow your retirement savings. SPP invests your hard-saved coins in a professionally managed, low-cost pooled fund. When it’s time to turn savings into income, your options include the possibility of a lifetime monthly annuity payment, or SPP’s flexible Variable Benefit.

Check out SPP today!

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In the U.S., women have “just one-third of men’s retirement savings”

South of the border, “women… have saved just a third of the amount that men have set aside for retirement, setting up a potential crisis among female retirees,” reports Voice of America.

The VOA article cites new research from Prudential Financial that found “on average, men had saved $157,000 USD for retirement, while women had put aside only $50,000 USD.”

There are a number of reasons for the gap, Caroline Feeney of Prudential tells VOA, including the fact that compared to men, “women were three times more likely to be focused on providing for their families and children than on saving.”

“`The financial futures of certain cohorts – such as women – are especially precarious,’ Feeney states in the article. `Women have a more challenging time saving for retirement,’ she adds, citing inflation, housing prices and changes in tax policies as the main barriers.”

Not surprisingly, 46 per cent of men said they are looking forward for retirement, compared to just 27 per cent of U.S. women polled, the article notes.

A story from GoBankingRates, commenting on the same survey results, says there are challenges ahead for both men and women on the U.S. retirement front.

“While women find themselves in a more precarious situation than men, people of both genders have a lot of saving and investing to do over the next 10 years. With just a single decade until retirement, the average 55-year-old American has only $47,950 in median retirement savings. Additionally, about one-third of 55-year-olds have postponed retirement due to high inflation these days,” the article notes.

“Probably the scariest data point is that a stunning 71 per cent of 55-year-olds have not calculated how many years their current retirement savings will last them — and two-thirds of this group expect they’ll outlive their savings,” the article adds.

GoBankingRates strongly recommends saving for retirement “early and often” to prevent a shortage of money in your golden years.

Even if you start saving late, after age 55, “it’s never too late to start aggressively saving for retirement. You’ll have a lot of catching up to do, but better late than never. Ultimately, you’ll need to save a lot more every month to ensure you have enough funds to call it quits at work. You might also want to consider working past age 65 to ensure a financially sound retirement.”

Workplace pension plans are a great way to make saving for retirement automatic, but they aren’t always portable – you can’t always continue to be in one employer’s pension plan if you change jobs and move to another.

A portability solution is the Saskatchewan Pension Plan. Since you can belong as an individual, you can continue to make contributions even if you change employers. Rather than ending up with several small buckets of retirement savings, you’ll end up with one, larger bucket – and the options of an SPP lifetime monthly annuity payment, or the flexible Variable Benefit, at retirement.

Check out SPP today!

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Retirement is about “much more than money,” authors of Retiring? say

When friends Ted Kaufman and Bruce Hiland compared notes about their transition from work to retirement, they felt there was a book in there. The result, Retiring?, is a great little reference work that provides key things to consider as you transition away from the workplace.

As a starting point, the authors note that “retirement has changed enormously in the last few decades in its duration, the circumstances giving rise to it, and decisions the individual has to make.”

As well, they note that most retirees they spoke to “were unprepared for the profound personal and life changes retirement brings. Addressing these non-financial issues seemed to hold the key to a satisfying and fulfilling retirement, but only financial matters had gotten the necessary attention.”

In short, people “are living longer” and “the onset of age-related health problems has slowed.” So we live longer and are more healthy, yet “a career with a single employer is now virtually unheard of,” and “ageism is alive and well,” with successful people still being shuffled off to retirement because they are deemed to be too old, the authors write.

In retirement, you have to move on from the old reality that your work “defines you,” the authors point out. You will need new social connections. But, retirement will bring change that you can embrace – “you’ll have more choices than ever before,” the authors say.

To set sail on retirement, the authors suggest (worksheets and a quiz are in the book to help you) that you define “what I value” as well as a “never again” list. This useful pros and cons list may help you decide whether or not to retire, or more possibly, when, the authors maintain.

Activities are crucial in retirement – things like “teaching, writing, starting a business, exploring a new talent, or fully developing one you already have, such as art, gardening, or photography.” Having one activity is good. “Two is not uncommon, but three seems to be pushing it. The core idea is to define your anchor so you can fit other interesting, satisfying activities around it, like filling in the smaller stores in the mall,” the authors explain.

In a chapter on relocation after retirement, the authors suggest making a test run before the big move. “Give it a serious tryout before making a decision. The same advice applies to a move back to someplace once familiar but where you haven’t lived for many years. Renting – ideally for a year – offers the most realistic experience against which to test your expectations,” the authors advise.

In the section about physical health and fitness, there is a nice worksheet section that considers such factors as your age, family history, stress level (and sources), chronic issues, and other factors to help you design a suitable health plan.

Be active and watch the drinking, the authors warn. “Exercise. Eat and drink in moderation. Develop a sensible plan, and then stick to it!”

After helpful chapters on mental health and spirituality, the authors conclude this fact-laden, thoughtful book by advising that “the new retirement will bring many changes. The one constant is that those who enjoy a satisfying and meaningful retirement are those who applied their thinking and planning talents to the challenge.”

Living after work is over will still require money. If you are lucky enough to have a retirement program at work, be sure to contribute to the max. If you are saving on your own for retirement, considering partnering up with the Saskatchewan Pension Plan, who have been helping Canadians build retirement security for more than 35 years.

Check out SPP today!

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Number of Canadians over age 85 set to triple: Statistics Canada

The number of Canadians over the age of 85 is expected to hit 4.3 million by 2073, which is triple the current number, reports The Canadian Press.

And in that future, about 50 years from now, there will be 63 million Canadians compared to just over 40 million today, the article notes.

Interestingly, the article says, Canada’s low birthrate means that most of the increase will be due to migration, which “will be the key driver of Canada’s growth for the foreseeable future,” the article adds.

The increase in numbers of older Canadians may have numerous impacts, the article reports.

Demographer Doug Norris tells CP that the growing senior population “will put double the pressure on the labour market because people are not only aging out of the work they provide but also aging into needing services provided by others.”

“We’ve heard a lot recently about long-term care, about the need for support for people to perhaps age in place, live in their residence for as long as they can, that help with that is needed,” he tells CP.

He predicts more people working in healthcare and long-term care facilities, “because the demand for those kinds of services are going to increase tremendously,” the article notes.

The growth, the article reports, should be seen the most in Western Canada with B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan “expected to take up more of Canada’s overall population in 50 years.” Eastern provinces, such as Newfoundland & Labrador, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Quebec are expected to see “a population decrease,” the report tells us.

Norris concludes by saying that addressing this growth in older seniors is something governments are going to have to address – for instance, more growth is expected in urban centres than in rural areas.

“We really are a very diverse country, and we need to understand the diversity not only in terms of aging and population, but in many other ways as well,” he tells CP.

So, let’s unpack this. Population is growing, more in some provinces than others, and more in cities than rural areas. The numbers of folks over 85 is going to triple over time, and there will need to be more long-term care or aging-in-place options for this group.

The future sounds pretty expensive. If you have a retirement program at work, be sure you are contributing to the max.

If you are saving on your own for retirement, a way to kick-start the process is to sign up for the Saskatchewan Pension Plan. Any Canadian with unused registered retirement savings plan room can join. SPP takes the heavy lifting of investment off your shoulders – they’ll merge your savings into SPP’s professionally managed, pooled fund which operates at a low cost.

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