Many of us count sheep once we hit the sack, but research suggests we might also want to count loonies and toonies.

A study conducted by the University of California found a financial connection between sleep and finances, reports the Financial Poise blog.

The key finding was that “people who increased their sleep by one hour per night saw their wages increase by five per cent in the long run,” the blog reports. While links between poor sleep and obesity, diabetes, and heart disease are better known, the study found financial impacts as well.

“Bank accounts could also suffer as a result of sleep deprivation. A 2016 CareerBuilder survey showed that 17 per cent of Americans reported that their memories were affected by a lack of sleep, while 24 per cent reported that poor sleep made them less productive. That’s a bad combination while on the job,” the article notes.

So the basic finding is that a well-rested person performs better and will ultimately make more than a less productive, forgetful, less-rested person, the article explains. The PC Financial website concurs.

“A life full of work, family and social commitments can definitely make you feel exhausted at the end of the day. And if you, like many people, find you’re not at your best after one or more poor or short nights of sleep, it’s not a stretch to think that your decision-making skills might be affected, impacting everything from your diet, mood and relationships to your job performance and your spending habits,” the blog advises.

How to maximize your sleep for razor-sharp thinking and financial acumen?

The blog offers these ideas.  First, making sleeping a priority, as you would exercise – find out how much sleep a person your age should be getting, and make that a new target, the blog suggests.

Next, stick to that target. “It might be tempting after a long week to burn the midnight oil on weekends and then sleep in late, but this only serves to confuse and disrupt your body’s sleep cycles. Try to be consistent with your sleep and wake times seven days a week,” the blog advises.

Make sure your bedroom is set up for sleeping – no distractions like TVs, reading or eating, the blog states, and develop a “regular bedtime routine.” The blog also advises unplugging from phones and the Internet.

The Wisebread blog lists a number of financial benefits from increased sleep, including “fewer illnesses and medical expenses,” which saves you money due to fewer work absences and less need for drugs and other medical services.

Other financially relevant benefits include “better decision-making,” and boosted productivity, the blog concludes.

It all sort of makes sense. If you are tired at the start of the day, you’ll blunder through, probably grabbing fast food instead of cooking breakfast, having extra Timmy breaks, and making unplanned purchases and spends instead of sticking to a budget.

So perhaps after your next recommended seven hour-sleep, you’ll wake up refreshed and ready to address your retirement savings plans. A nice destination for that thinking is the Saskatchewan Pension Plan, an excellent tool that helps turn your saved dollars into a future lifetime retirement income. Sleep on it, of course, but then check them out the next day!

Written by Martin Biefer
	Martin Biefer is Senior Pension Writer at Avery & Kerr Communications in Nepean, Ontario. A veteran reporter, editor and pension communicator, he’s now a freelancer. Interests include golf, line dancing and classic rock. He and his wife live with their Shelties, Duncan and Phoebe, and cat, Toobins. You can follow him on Twitter – his handle is @AveryKerr22

A look at the best of the Internet, from an SPP point of view

Women have to plan for a longer retirement

What works for a man may not work for a woman, and that sentiment is true when it comes to retirement planning.

According to the Young and Thrifty blog, women need “to know how to save more than men.”

They need to save more than the conventional 10 per cent of salary, the post notes, or else they could risk not having enough money in retirement. “Advice given to women about how much to save for retirement may be so far off base that, according to the Broadbent Institute, 28 per cent of senior women are currently living in poverty in Canada,” the article notes.

The article notes that as a starting point, women earn less than men, about 87 cents for every dollar earned by a man. That means less to save for retirement, the blog notes.

Secondly, women “tend to invest more conservatively than men,” the article advises. Women, the article notes, tend to shy away from riskier market investments in favour of GICs and high-interest savings accounts. “While these can be great short-term strategies, these investments offer a lower return, stunting the growth of the money over the long term,” the blog reports.

So the problem is that women “are earning less, saving less, and generally choosing investment strategies that yield less,” the article notes. “But because women generally live longer than men, they need to squirrel away more money in their nest egg.”

The article notes that women tend to live four years longer than men, meaning a more expensive retirement. “Four years longer doesn’t seem that long, but if you assume a retirement age of 65, that’s 28 per cent more years spent in retirement,” the article warns.

A final factor – women tend to leave the workforce to raise children, meaning they don’t have as long a career or as many opportunities to save, the article says.

What to do?

The article advises women to consider sharing some of their parental leave time with their spouses, so that they aren’t off work as much. If you are off on a leave, a spouse can open a spousal RRSP to ensure that retirement savings continues while you are caring for a child. The article urges “more aggressive investments” by women, including the use of exchange-traded funds or ETFs, so that you are getting more benefit from the stock market.

And finally, the article says the savings target for women should be 18 per cent of income, as opposed to 10 per cent for men.

Interestingly, the Saskatchewan Pension Plan was invented with women in mind. The SPP started out as a way for busy women and moms to have their own way to save. The SPP offers professional investing at a very low cost, is scaleable (you can put more in when you make more, and less in when you make less) and very importantly, offers a simple way to turn those savings into reliable monthly lifetime income when you leave the workforce.

It’s an ideal tool for women who want to upgrade their retirement savings – check them out today.

Written by Martin Biefer
	Martin Biefer is Senior Pension Writer at Avery & Kerr Communications in Nepean, Ontario. A veteran reporter, editor and pension communicator, he’s now a freelancer. Interests include golf, line dancing, classic rock, and darts. You can follow him on Twitter – his handle is @AveryKerr22

There’s a new organization out there aiming to help bring pension leaders up to speed on some emerging issues – societal, economic, and environmental – that are having new impacts on the way retirement savings programs are run.

Save with SPP spoke with Caroline Cakebread, founder of the new Canadian Leadership Congress, about what the new group hopes to achieve.

Cakebread, a veteran financial journalist who edited Canadian Investment Review for more than 15 years, says the Congress is designed to fill an information gap here in Canada. “We wanted to do something different, some things that haven’t been done much in Canada,” she explains. The group, she adds, will bring pension CEOs and CIOs together for “intimate conversations” about emerging issues, like geopolitical risks, the pros and cons of emerging markets, and environmental impacts on investing. The Congress’ focus is strategic, she explains.

Other key issues the Congress will be looking at with leaders include the growing role of technology, diversity and leadership, and the overall “very uncertain investment environment.”

The Congress held its first major session in Montreal early in June. The format, she says, features speakers, panels, “congressional huddles” and lots of opportunity for networking. A goal, she says, is to connect the pension leaders with experts in a format that encourages free and open discussion, and lots of talk around the table. A number of comments from participants and speakers were made available on Twitter, notes Cakebread. 

The educational outreach the Congress provides is a new approach, Cakebread says, and one that many pension leaders had privately told her is not currently available in Canada. As well, rather than targeting one type of pension organization, the Congress is “more available” to a wider range of plan types. While all of the plans represented are fairly large, some are defined benefit, some are defined contribution, some offer both types, and so on.

While there is a lot out there for pension leaders in terms of educational conferences, there is less for executives who are at a “deal maker” level when it comes to decision making, she says. She’s hoping that the new Congress will meet that need.

Cakebread says that during her time in the pension industry, the public’s interest has really begun to grow. “When I started out, as editor of a pension publication years ago, in the early 2000s, pensions were considered a dull topic,” she says. But now, as the boomer population ages and people begin to grasp the significance of pension income and retirement security, “pensions are cool,” she says with a smile.

If you’re interested in finding out what the Congress is up to, be sure to follow them on Twitter, the handle is @CLCongress. We thank Caroline Cakebread for taking the time to speak with us.

It’s true that pensions were a pretty dull topic in the early 2000s, but the growing retiree population in the intervening years has indeed make retirement security “cool.” The general decline in the number of workplaces offering plans means many of us will need to save on our own. If you’re in that number, a great resource is the Saskatchewan Pension Plan. Check them out today.

Written by Martin Biefer
	Martin Biefer is Senior Pension Writer at Avery & Kerr Communications in Nepean, Ontario. A veteran reporter, editor and pension communicator, he’s now a freelancer. Interests include golf, line dancing and classic rock. He and his wife live with their Shelties, Duncan and Phoebe, and cat, Toobins. You can follow him on Twitter – his handle is @AveryKerr22

A look at the best of the Internet, from an SPP point of view

Caring for parents hits retirement savings bottom line

New research has found that 14 per cent of Canadians with a living parent “are expecting the impact of helping their parents financially will mean delaying their own retirement,” reports Wealth Professional.

A further 12 per cent say caring for parents will prevent them from paying off debt, the magazine notes, citing research carried out by Leger for FP Canada and Chartwell Retirement Residences.

Other fears connected with parental care include having to take time off work to look after parents (a concern for 13 per cent of respondents), or having to quit work entirely to provide care (a fear for five per cent of those surveyed), the magazine reports.

For sure, having a parent who develops a serious illness and can’t live on their own anymore can throw a wrench in any plan. Is there much that can be done about it?

According to Sharon Henderson, VP of Marketing & Communications for Chartwell, an important thing to do is to talk with the parents about the possibility of a future health downturn.

“One of the biggest concerns we see in retirement living is the avoidance of financial conversations between adult children and their senior parents. This can create uncertainty and prevent proactive planning for support later in life,” she states in the article.

It’s important to go over the potential costs of long-term care, and to be aware of what measures the parents have put in place to help pay for it, the article advises. As well, there are tax credits available if you are acting as a caregiver, the article notes.

As Kelley Keehn of FP Canada notes in the article, “the senior years can be financially challenging, and as a result, many older Canadians turn to family members for support. That can cause a significant financial strain, and as Canadians live longer, that strain will only grow.”

Some great things about retirement

While it’s a safe bet that no one’s retirement will be completely smooth sailing, there are good things about it that we must not lose sight of, reports US News and World Report.

For starters, “a weight is lifted from your shoulders when you quit the rat race,” the article notes. There’s more time for movies and TV. You can try new things, join new clubs, and meet new people. And if you miss the routine of working, you can still do it part-time, the article suggests. There’s loads more time for family and friends, and to “give back” via volunteering, the article notes.

Other ideas include travel, enjoying the “time to do nothing,” and generally doing what you want instead of what others want you to do, the article concludes.

Whether it’s caring for a relative or doing your own thing, retirement is a time of life where you’ll appreciate having money. Sure the government provides some, but if you don’t have a workplace pension, or you want to supplement what it provides, consider saving on your own via the Saskatchewan Pension Plan. You can start small, you can ramp up your contributions as your income increases, and when it’s time to collect your savings you can receive it as a lifetime monthly pension. Check them out today!

Written by Martin Biefer
	Martin Biefer is Senior Pension Writer at Avery & Kerr Communications in Nepean, Ontario. A veteran reporter, editor and pension communicator, he’s now a freelancer. Interests include golf, line dancing, classic rock, and darts. You can follow him on Twitter – his handle is @AveryKerr22

Many books about retirement focus on finances, others on health, wellness, and attitude. But Eric Thurman’s Thrive in Retirement provides a holistic owner’s manual to help get your mind, your soul and your attitude on the right path.

“Retirement,” he writes, “is no longer a short pause between work and the grave. It is now a long, major stage of life, because never before in human history have so many people lived decades beyond their working years.”

He looks at the five vital parts of life, which are “mind, body, relationships, soul, and finances.” The book uses these five things as a sort of lens through which to view your retirement activities and progress.

He also notes that the “three secrets of happiness” are “purpose, pleasure, and peace.” These ideas should also guide you, Thurman recommends.

Having a purpose in life, he notes, citing research from the English Longitudinal Study of Aging, “is associated with increased survival.” The study found that 29.3 per cent of people “in the lowest wellbeing quartile” died within 8.5 years (of retirement);” that compares to just 9.3 per cent in the highest wellbeing quartile. Thurman calls this “compellingly good news,” noting that “you can be happier and live longer if you wake up each morning enthused about the importance of how you will spend your day.”

He expands on this idea. “Recall the five parts of your life: mind, body, relationship, soul and finances. Don’t settle for any of them being deficient or, worse yet, sources of pain. Pursue emotional freedom.”

Your mind will thrive if you “free it from emotional pain” by letting go of minor things that bother you; you then need to keep it active through learning, through hobbies and activities, and even through part-time work, the book notes.

For one’s body, consider where you are on this scale – at the topic is “physically elite,” followed by “physically fit, physically independent, physically frail and physically dependent.” You need to try and be as high up on that scale as you can. He quotes the Quebec marathon runner Jacqueline Gareau as saying strategy must be employed in fitness – “it is not age, it is not diet. It is the will to succeed.”

In the chapter “Make Peace with Money,” Thurman advises us to “clarify our dreams” about money and importantly, to “control your money or it will control you.” He writes that we should “always view money as something you should put to good use and treat with respect. Never love the money and possessions you have. Never love money you don’t have. Never let money own you.”

Debt, he notes, should be treated “like a disease.” Avoid catching it, but if you do, “work to get over it as quickly as possible.” Overspending, he writes, “is always harmful” and credit card debt “ruinous.”

This well-written and motivational book ends with this bit of advice. “Think about how you want the story of your life to close. It won’t be a great ending if you drift passively, letting the river push you wherever it wishes. Instead, choose to steer towards happiness; do some paddling and raise your sail.”

It’s true that debt is the slayer of retirement dreams. One reason may be that paying off debt prevents people from saving for retirement, which in turn leads to less retirement income or a later retirement date. You can fight back by saving on your own for life after work; the earlier you start, the better it will be. And a great tool to use in that effort is the Saskatchewan Pension Plan.

Written by Martin Biefer
	Martin Biefer is Senior Pension Writer at Avery & Kerr Communications in Nepean, Ontario. A veteran reporter, editor and pension communicator, he’s now a freelancer. Interests include golf, line dancing and classic rock. He and his wife live with their Shelties, Duncan and Phoebe, and cat, Toobins. You can follow him on Twitter – his handle is @AveryKerr22

Those of us who still remember buying Beatles records and wearing tie-dye (both still worthy things to do today, of course) are aware that we need to do regular exercise to keep the old machine ticking along. But what’s the best and even safest kind to do? Save with SPP took a look around the web for some answers.

The Government of Canada’s seniors website tells us the value of fitness as we age. “Physical activity improves health and well-being. It reduces stress, strengthens the heart and lungs, increases energy levels, helps you maintain and achieve a healthy body weight and it improves your outlook on life,” the site notes.

“Research shows that physical inactivity can cause premature death, chronic disease and disability,” the site adds.

The exercises the feds recommend include “walking once a day, taking the stairs instead of the elevator… and (to) walk, wheel or cycle for short trips.” Use cycling and walking paths in your area, and spend less time in front of the computer or the TV, the government recommends.

The Top 10 Home Remedies blog also is big on walking, noting that regular “moderate-intensity walking” helps reduce mobility disability by 2.6 years. They like swimming, which they say is, if done regularly, “related to better performance on the three executive functions (behavioural inhibition, working memory updating, and cognitive flexibility),” and can help the body’s balance, which in turn prevents falls.

Yoga, the blog says, done moderately can “help with weight loss, improve sleep quality, and delay the age-related effects of aging motor systems.”

Don’t forget about strength, notes the Live About Dot Com blog. “Strength exercises build older adult muscles and increase your metabolism, which helps to keep your weight and blood sugar in check,” the blog suggests. As mentioned, the blog says balance exercises “help build leg muscles, and this helps to reduce falls.”

Stretching exercises “can give you more freedom of movement,” and any cardio-type endurance exercise like “walking, jogging, swimming or raking leaves” will “increase your heart rate and breathing for an extended period of time.”

In addition to the activities already listed here, the How Stuff Works blog touts the benefit of water aerobics (“a low-impact, full body workout”), tai chi, golf and gardening.

Save with SPP has tried most of these, and can say that the more regular exercise one does, the better report card one will receive from the doctor. Any time we’ve decided to take a few months off from exercise, it has resulted in a negative spell healthwise. When we get back into the gym, everything is a go again. Who knew?

Be sure to research your exercise plans well and have a plan that you will be able to follow. Your future you will thank you for the effort.

And your future you will be very pleased to receive income from retirement savings made by the current you. Like fitness, saving requires commitment and discipline and a little bit of sacrifice, but the rewards far outweigh these costs. Make saving a part of your monthly plans – and if you are looking for a full-service, one-stop retirement savings program, look no further than the Saskatchewan Pension Plan. They have all the tools you need to reach your goals.

Written by Martin Biefer
	Martin Biefer is Senior Pension Writer at Avery & Kerr Communications in Nepean, Ontario. A veteran reporter, editor and pension communicator, he’s now a freelancer. Interests include golf, line dancing and classic rock. He and his wife live with their Shelties, Duncan and Phoebe, and cat, Toobins. You can follow him on Twitter – his handle is @AveryKerr22

A look at the best of the Internet, from an SPP point of view

Be sure you don’t miss out on pension benefits from long-ago work

When this writer was a young reporter in the 1980s, it seemed that moving to a new job took place every year or two. It’s quite common, in fact, for people to have many different jobs over the course of their careers.

So it’s not that surprising that some of these folks had pension or retirement savings through their old employers that they’ve forgotten about – and that unclaimed pension money is still there, looking for them.

A recent report in Benefits Canada took a look at the size of this problem. While no one knows exactly how much unclaimed pension money is out there, “the federal government says the number could be rising with people switching jobs more often, qualifying for plans faster, retiring abroad more often and not updating their mailing address because of increased reliance on online accounts,” the magazine reports.

The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, for instance, “has about 30,500 members it can’t locate,” the article says. In the UK, an estimated $682 million in unclaimed pension money is piling up in various accounts, hoping to be reunited with its owners.

When the various plans can’t reach members, they’ll try tracking them down “through Equifax, search firms, and the Canada Revenue Agency,” the story notes. Unfortunately, there are so many fake CRA calls out there now that many people don’t respond, believing it all to be a scam, the article adds.

So what should you do if you think you might have had benefits in a retirement plan of a long-ago employer?

The article recommends that you “call up the human resources or pension administrator at the old company. If the company has been taken over, gone bankrupt or is otherwise hard to find, (you) can try getting in touch with the provincial regulator.”

If you think you may be missing out on benefits from long ago, it’s a good idea to make that call.

Take a tip and help your retirement

The Retire Happy blog offers some great tips to help you plan for retirement.

First, the blog notes, “take care of your health and make fitness a priority.” As well, “prepare for the retirement process by having a good idea, in advance, of what your income will be as well as your expenses,” the blog advises. The idea here is to have no surprises.

A third great bit of advice that many retirees wish they had taken is to “pay off debts while you are still working.” The blog notes that a surprising 59 per cent of retirees are in debt, and “for 19 per cent, that debt has grown in the last year.” The blog advises “laying off the credit cards” before retirement and remembering that in nearly every case, your retirement income will be less – not more – than what you were making at work.

Save with SPP has an additional tip to add to these excellent suggestions, and that is this – start saving early. The earlier you start saving for retirement, the more you’ll have when work is a fading memory. You can start small and grow your contributions to savings when you get a raise or a bonus. A terrific tool for your retirement savings program is the Saskatchewan Pension Plan; be sure to check them out today.

Written by Martin Biefer
	Martin Biefer is Senior Pension Writer at Avery & Kerr Communications in Nepean, Ontario. A veteran reporter, editor and pension communicator, he’s now a freelancer. Interests include golf, line dancing, classic rock, and darts. You can follow him on Twitter – his handle is @AveryKerr22

Ever since we Canadians moved to the loonie and the toonie, we all have noticed the heavy amount of change we have to carry around. Getting rid of the penny helped a bit, but those coins pile up. Save with SPP took a look at what we are doing with all that spare change.

A Wikihow site called Save Money with Spare Change suggests that you “get yourself a change jar that you want to use to put all your spare change in.” Then, you consolidate all your change from pockets, little piles around the house, and so on in that one big container, the post says.  Keep stuffing the change into the jar (without taking any out) until the jar is full, the article notes. Once it is full, the article recommends that you “start rolling (the coins) up with wrappers,” and then either spending that stash of change, or putting it in the bank.

An article in the Mint Life blog, What’s the Best Way to Cash in Loose Change for Free, talks about using Coinstar machines, a coin counting device, to turn your change into folding money.   These machines, the article says, which are commonly found at grocery stores, are simple to use.

“Simply drop your coins into the slot and the machine counts them all up for you,” the article notes.

“You receive a handy-dandy money voucher afterwards, condensing all your heavy metal money into one, easy-to-store piece of paper,” the article adds.

While the “pro” is that the machine is easy to use and a simpler way to get rid of coins than rolling them up in wrappers, fees usually apply, the article says. In other words, the machine gets a cut of your savings.

If you don’t like the fee, you can roll them yourself, pay someone else to roll them, or buy your own coin separating machine, the article suggests.

Is it all worth the bother?

Well, maybe. The Five Cent Nickel blog tells the story of “a guy named Danny who uses a coin jar to supercharge his savings. Whenever he spends cash, he makes a point of not using his change – and when he receives additional change, he collects it in a jar back at home before taking it to the bank.”

Danny, the article says, “managed to save $723 over a seven-month period by doing this.” The article notes that Danny benefits from being Canadian and having loonies and toonies to “supercharge his change jar.”

Save with SPP uses many of these principles. Our change goes in a little metal piggy bank. It’s home for change from pockets, from returning bottles, and from minor scratch ticket wins. When the bank gets heavy, it’s off to the local grocery store for coin counting, and then to the bank to deposit the paper bills. The final destination for that money is retirement savings, via the Saskatchewan Pension Plan. It’s a great way to turn a little change into retirement security.

Written by Martin Biefer
	Martin Biefer is Senior Pension Writer at Avery & Kerr Communications in Nepean, Ontario. A veteran reporter, editor and pension communicator, he’s now a freelancer. Interests include golf, line dancing and classic rock. He and his wife live with their Shelties, Duncan and Phoebe, and cat, Toobins. You can follow him on Twitter – his handle is @AveryKerr22

A look at the best of the Internet, from an SPP point of view

A new retirement worry – the cost of healthcare as you age

They say the best things in life are free – however, the cost of healthcare, particularly for older Canadians, does carry a price tag.

And, according to recent Ipsos poll, conducted for the Canadian Medical Association and reported on by the CBC in Prince Edward Island, the cost of future care may prompt some Canadians to delay their retirement.

According to the polling, “58 per cent believe Canadians will have to delay retirement to afford health care. The poll also found that 88 per cent of respondents are worried about the growing number of seniors requiring more health care,” the CBC story reports.

Why are people concerned?

In the article, the CMA’s president Dr. Gigi Osler explains what people worry about.

“Our current health care system is already strained and already not able to meet the needs of our seniors, and will be even more strained in the coming years,” she states. “As our population ages, not only are people going to have to pay more for those services it’s going to cost our already strained health care system more in the coming years.”

Those concerns certainly seem to impact the thinking of older Canadians, the article notes. “Older Canadians (55 and over) are most concerned about how health care costs may affect their wallets. The survey found 77 per cent of those 55 and over were worried about the financial burden of health care costs, compared to 70 per cent of those 35-54 and 58 per cent of those 18-34,” the article reports.

The takeaway here is to be aware that costs of care can be fairly significant, particularly if you live to a long age and require some form of long-term care. Perhaps we all need to factor those future and often unexpected costs into our savings plans.

Another retirement thorn – carrying a mortgage after you’ve left work

The Financial Post runs a cautionary tale about a couple – who appear to have been great savers and investors – who are running into problems in retirement due to a “late life mortgage.”

“The couple has a late-life mortgage because they sent their children, now in their mid-20s, to private schools and paid their university costs. As a result, the kids have no education debts — but the parents have a big debt in retirement. On top of that, the kids are still living at home,” the article notes.

The couple are having cash flow problems, despite owning a $1.5 million home, having more than $500,000 in RRSPs and $100,000 in TFSAs, and a further $20,000 of investments, the article adds.

The solution from the Post is for the couple to sell their home and downsize. The article quotes Derek Moran, of Smarter Financial Ltd. In Kelowna, as saying that “more cash and less house” would give the couple more financial security. “Moreover, selling the house would give the kids a nudge to move out,” he states. “They should have independent lives.”

You can’t fault these parents for helping out their kids, but putting themselves behind the eight ball impacts their retirement and limits their ability to help the kids further.

If you’re still a long time away from retirement, and haven’t yet begun to put money away, a great choice for you is the Saskatchewan Pension Plan. Those savings will add to your income when you retire, allowing you to roll with the punches should health or family issues arise. A nice little extra chunk of income is never a bad thing when you’re too old to work.

Written by Martin Biefer
	Martin Biefer is Senior Pension Writer at Avery & Kerr Communications in Nepean, Ontario. A veteran reporter, editor and pension communicator, he’s now a freelancer. Interests include golf, line dancing, classic rock, and darts. You can follow him on Twitter – his handle is @AveryKerr22

It’s very difficult for those of us who are retired to explain what it’s like to those still working. And it’s equally difficult for those still at the desk to visualize their time after work.  Save with SPP took a look around the Interweb to see what sort of things we don’t do once we are retired, hoping this listing might help demystify the intrigue that is retirement.

According to The Terrace blog, a thing you’ll stop doing and saying is that you’re too busy or have no time to do things. “The new retiree finally has the time to do the things that have been put off for years. This includes projects, such as cleaning out closets and other chores around the home, travel to visit family and friends, starting new leisure activities, hobbies and taking classes,” the blog notes.

The Disabled World blog lists a variety of things that most seniors will be no longer able to do, such as getting to the phone on time, reading small print, “watching bad news,” and significantly, opening packages “containing things we really want to get our hands on.” Things that were easy to do before, warns the blog, will eventually become more difficult, a factor to be aware of.

One great thing is that you can stop planning for retirement once it has happened, notes US News and World Report. You will have done all the things the article lists, such as reviewing your finances and sources of income, health and benefit coverage, and using up your last days of vacation. You won’t have to “take vacation” once retirement has begun.

The MoneySense blog notes, among other things, that you will stop not being able to see your spouse. “Sure, you love your spouse, but let’s do a little math here. Chances are, for most of your married life at least one of you has worked outside the home. Subtract sleep, travel time and other away time and you’ve seen your beloved for— at most — six hours a day,” the blog notes.

You’ll see your spouse twice as much once you retire, the blog adds, and that can cause “some couples to bicker.”

Other things Save with SPP has noted include not having to buy a commuter pass or pay for a workplace parking spot, not having to have `clothes for work,’ including a vast array of ties, dressy shoes, and suits, and not having to attend one or two meetings every day of the workweek. You’ll find you lose track of what day it is, don’t really experience a difference when it is the weekend or a holiday, and put off doing things until it is NOT the weekend so there’s better parking and less crowds.

And strangely you’ll probably find you are just as busy as you were before you retired, but it will be with different tasks and activities.

The transition to retirement is a tricky thing. Putting away a little more money for those golden years is always a good idea, because once you don’t get a paycheque you’ll be dependant on workplace pensions, government retirement benefits and your own savings. Why not perk up your personal savings through a Saskatchewan Pension Plan account? You can save at your own pace, watch your money get professionally invested at a very low fee, and then enjoy additional lifetime retirement income once you’ve left the punchclock behind. It’s win-win.

Written by Martin Biefer
	Martin Biefer is Senior Pension Writer at Avery & Kerr Communications in Nepean, Ontario. A veteran reporter, editor and pension communicator, he’s now a freelancer. Interests include golf, line dancing and classic rock. He and his wife live with their Shelties, Duncan and Phoebe, and cat, Toobins. You can follow him on Twitter – his handle is @AveryKerr22