We talk – endlessly, it seems – about the importance of building retirement security, either via a workplace pension, your own savings, government plans, and so on.

But a new report from Market Watch suggests there’s a new investment category that more of us need to focus on – the “psychological portfolio.”

The article quotes Nancy Schlossberg, author of Too Young To Be Old: Love, Learn, Work and Play as You Grow Old, as saying any retirement planners should think of “what they’ll do in retirement, and how they’ll interact with others.”

“You have your identity so tied to work, when you are no longer working, who are you?” Schlossberg stated at a recent live personal finance event. In other words, your future you may not be the same as the current version of you.

Schlossberg goes on to define six different ways you can define your own retirement path. According to the article, the six ways are:

• adventurers, who take on a new job they’ve never done before
• continuers, whose work is similar to what they did before
• easy gliders, who take retirement day by day
• involved spectators, who immerse themselves in fields without working at it full time
• searchers, who aren’t sure what to do next, and
• retreaters, who can’t figure out what to do

Whatever path you select will help you build your new post-work identity, Schlossberg notes in the article.

The article concludes by quoting Marty Kurtz of the Planning Center, who appeared on the same panel with author Schlossberg, as saying “do we have a good view of reality and do we understand what our expectations are? It is not just about the money, it is about money and life and how.. they work together.” 

Dividend investing – a good approach for volatile markets ahead?

Writing in the Financial Post , author Christine Ibbotson suggests dividend investing is a good way to address volatile markets.

“When (bond) yields are likely to stay low and markets have a tendency to have future volatility, dividend strategies should be revisited. Start moving more of your investments toward high-quality dividend payers and high-quality growth-name stock picks,” she writes.

Periods of low interest rates “have always typically benefited dividend investing,” and growth stocks in particular seem to do well in a low-interest rate environment, Ibbotson notes.

She says that while many investors expect a “bull market” after COVID-19 is finally addressed, there may be a lot of market swings before then. “There will be some unexpected volatility that will at times remain elevated in the coming months as investors continue to doubt the validity and sustainability of the bull,” she predicts.

Worried about navigating tricky markets? Consider joining the Saskatchewan Pension Plan, and letting expert investors navigate through waters choppy and calm. The SPP has averaged an eight per cent rate of return since its inception 35 years ago, and that management expertise is delivered at a very low rate. Check out SPP today!

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If retirement looks unaffordable, there’s always Ecuador

New research by a New Brunswick-based economic sociologist sheds some interesting light on why many North Americans move to lower-cost, better climate retirement spots – specifically Ecuador.

Market Watch recently published an interview with Matthew Hayes, author of the book Gringolandia, which looked into some of the reasons why middle-class North Americans are doing a “reverse migration” to the South American country.

Hayes says in the interview that he began realizing that most ex-pats who retire to Ecuador were doing so because of a lack of retirement savings. He says a lot of “peoples’ lives were being reorganized” after the global financial crisis of 2008, and for many, retirement plans had to be cheapened up.

His research showed that it was not so much that Ecuador was more attractive than where they were, it was that they needed to escape from “the rat wheel,” the article explains. “Maybe their careers didn’t develop the way they wanted to live. Or they wanted a more meaningful life. Some told me it might be difficult to purchase and sustain retirement in a place like Los Angeles if you’re not independently wealthy,” Hayes states in the interview.

Many, he states, saw moving to a new continent with a different language as being a great, late-life adventure akin to travel.

“They talked about being more active and able to socialize more and staying young by meeting people and getting involved in activities and seeing things they hadn’t seen before. It’s all very tied to the idea of active aging, which is a dominant cultural ideal of aging at this moment in time,” states Hayes.

But the main point of the move was that the North Americans, lacking in savings, were “economic refugees,” the article explains.

“They couldn’t stay in the United States living the life they were living without continuing to work. And some felt they were displaced. In a lot of cities, like Portland, Oregon, and San Francisco and New York and Chicago, the cost of living has increased so much in the last decade or two that some people feel it’s impossible to remain in place,” Hayes states in the article.

And, he states, the “refugees” found there were more benefits than simply lower costs by moving to Ecuador. “What came up in many interviews was how they lost weight when they moved to Ecuador because they’re so much more physically active, walking to places and eating healthier food,” the article notes.

This story underlines the importance of having retirement savings – the more you can afford, the better – to give you options when you retire. Staying where you are today and having the same level of expenses will be difficult if you don’t have retirement savings to bolster what you’ll receive from government retirement benefits.

If you don’t have a workplace pension or do but want to supplement it, an excellent do-it-yourself pension plan is out there for you. It’s the Saskatchewan Pension Plan, an open defined contribution plan with more than $500 million in assets serving 33,000 members. They can set you up with a pension account, you determine how much you want to contribute, and they’ll handle investing the money at a management fee that’s typically less than 100 basis points (1%). When retirement comes, you just contact SPP and they’ll set up your monthly lifetime 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

 

We were chatting about retirement with a salesman at the local car dealership when he rolled out a bombshell – in his early 70s, he had no plans for retirement. He loved what he does and wants to keep on doing it for as long as he can. Maybe in his mid- to late 80s he might get a cottage, he says.

That made Save with SPP wonder if others aren’t retiring – and why.

The Wise Bread blog says there are five types of people who don’t retire – the “broke non-retiree, the workaholic, the successful investor, the life re-inventor and the mega-successful lifers.”

The article notes that “a startling 47 per cent” of Americans “now plan to retire “at a later age than they expected when they were 40.” The reason why – 24 per cent of Americans 50 and older have saved less than $10,000 for retirement.

For workaholics, the article notes, “it can be devastating to face retirement,” with many fighting it “tooth and nail.” Successful investors, the article notes, may have bought real estate, gold, or stocks early and now have enough money that they don’t need to work. Life re-inventors retire from one job and take on a new, totally different one, and the “mega-successful” tend to be CEOs, actors, star athletes, folks who have sufficient wealth to not worry about a formal retirement.

The New York Times reports that there are 1.5 million Americans over the age of 75 who are still working. Judge Jack Weinstein, age 96, still gets up for work every day at 5:30 a.m., the newspaper reports. “I’ve never thought of retiring,” he tells the newspaper. “If you are doing interesting work, you want to continue.” The paper says that those who are employed in jobs “in which skill and brainpower matter more than brawn and endurance” often keep going past usual retirement age, as do the self-employed and industry stars, like Warren Buffett.

An article in Market Watch picks up on another point – there are many people who don’t like the sound of retirement. “The idea of a retirement where a person has little responsibility, and, worst of all, interacts with very few people, just isn’t appealing to the current crop of pre-retirees,” the article notes.

A more Canuck-friendly view comes from Canadian Living, which lists the main reasons for not retiring as “you need the money, you like working, you hate retirement,” and significantly, “you’ll collect bigger benefits” and “you’ll lose your RRSP later.”

“If you collect your CPP at age 70,” the article points out, “you’ll get 42 per cent more than if you retired at 65.” Similarly, if you collect CPP at 60, you get 36 per cent less than if you collected at 65, the article states.

On the RRSP front, since you must convert your RRSP to a RRIF (or buy an annuity) by age 71, delaying retirement means you will have more money in retirement, the magazine notes.

These are all good points. Save with SPP notes that there are many folks who simply live in the now and won’t think about retirement until they must. The idea that we can all keep working forever is a nice one but tends to be an exception, rather than a rule.

We may not want to retire, but the vast majority of us probably will. Even if you’re in the group that has saved very little up until age 50, there is still time to augment your life after work with some retirement savings. The Saskatchewan Pension Plan is quite unique in that it is open to all Canadians and provides an end-to-end retirement vehicle – your savings are invested and turned into a lifetime pension at retirement time. It’s a wise choice, even for those who don’t want to retire.

 

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

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

Canadians need to save 11 times their salary by retirement

There are many “rules of thumb” in the world of money. One used to be that your rent should equal one quarter of your monthly take home pay. Another used to be that your house should be worth twice your annual salary.

According to research by Fidelity in the US, reported by Market Watch, people should have saved a year’s salary for retirement by age 30.

By age 40, Canadians should have saved three times their salary for retirement. And by “average retirement age,” usually early 60s, Canucks need to have saved 11 times their salary, the article says.

The article tempers the alarm it raises with these high figures by pointing out that they are just guidelines. “Everyone faces different circumstances, and therefore need varying amounts of money by the time they retire,” the article reports. “Some people may choose to rent or pay off a mortgage, while others may not have any housing obligations except for taxes and utilities. Some retirees may want to take more vacations, or have more medical bills to pay, or have intentions with their money, such as an inheritance for their children and grandchildren.”

And don’t forget that the contributions you make towards CPP and a portion of your income tax are retirement savings payments, since you will get a CPP pension one day and likely Old Age Security as well.

That said, Statistics Canada, via the CBC, reports that the average Canadian saves only four per cent of his or her income, and that there was a whopping $683.6 billion in unused RRSP room as of the end of 2011. The article notes that someone saving $2,000 a year from age 25 on would have $301,478 by age 65. That might not be 11 times his or her salary, but it is a pretty good number.

Retirement savings, like losing weight or getting out of debt, is overwhelming when you first set out to do it. But if you start small, and chip away over the years at your target, you will be surprised to see how far you’ve come when the time comes to log out of work for the last time.

If you’re not fortunate enough to have a pension plan at work – and if you do, and have extra contribution room each year – the Saskatchewan Pension Plan is a great way to build your retirement savings. You can start small, or can contribute up to $6,200 per year. You can transfer savings in from other retirement savings vehicles. The money is invested professionally at a very low fee, and when you retire, you’ll have many options for turning savings into a lifetime income stream. Check it out today.

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