We hear of the term “sticker shock” when it comes to buying big-ticket items, like a new car, or a new home.

But lately, it’s been “grocery shock” when you pay $200 and put only three or four bags into the trunk in the grocery store parking lot. Grocery prices are crazy high — so Save with SPP did a little digging into ways to make those expensive groceries last a little longer.

At The Food Network, we are told that U.S. research has found that we waste “between 15 and 25 per cent of the food we purchase… imagine throwing one out of every four grocery bags right into the trash!”

The trick, reports Toby Amidor, is in storing the food you buy correctly. Amidor reports that precious eggs can last up to five weeks in the fridge, provided you put them in “the coldest part of the refrigerator.”

“Do not store them in the door (it’s the warmest part of the refrigerator),” Amidor writes. Instead, store them near the back of the fridge and in their original container.

We remember having fridges that had little egg holders built into the door, years ago! Guess that design didn’t make it into the 21^st century!

Other tips from The Food Network include the idea of storing nuts in the fridge or freezer, rather than in a cupboard or on the countertop. “The fat within the nuts can go rancid more quickly once the package is opened,” the article explains. They’ll last longer if you keep them cold, The Food Network reports.

Across the pond, The Express expands on the idea of what foods shouldn’t be stored on your fridge door — milk, cream, butter and cheese should all be inside the fridge and not stored on the door; cheese should go inside a compartment, the article advises.

The folks at Reader’s Digest suggest you should wash berries “with a mix of vinegar and water (think a 1:3 ratio)” before popping them in the fridge. “This disinfects against mould, (and) can lengthen shelf life by weeks,” the article suggests. Be sure to rinse the berries in water after you’ve used the vinegar/water mixture to clean them, the article adds.

Leftover lettuce “should be stored in a bowl with a paper towel on top, then sealed with plastic wrap.” The paper absorbs any moisture in the lettuce leaves, keeping them from turning brown as quickly, the article explains.

Squirt an avacado with a few drops of lemon juice to keep it from going brown as quickly, the team at Reader’s Digest adds, and carrots will last longer if you store them in a container with a little water inside.

A second article in The Express provides a tip on how to “revive” stale bread. Rather than chucking it out, you should “douse the stale bread with water and then (put) it in the over at 200 degrees C for five minutes.” The result is “flakey and delicious” bread, warm from the oven, instead of more garbage/compost.

Food is an expensive commodity that we seem happy to waste, reports The Barbecue Lab. Food waste, the publication reports, “makes up 20 per cent of landfills in the U.S.” An incredible “$48.3 billion of food… is thrown away or wasted worldwide,” the article continues. That’s 1.3 billion tons of food worldwide, the article adds, noting that “one third of all food is wasted,” including 25 per cent of the groceries we buy.

Our late mom used to tell us to “use everything up” in the fridge before buying more groceries. This is a practical approach, and if you are stumped for ideas, do a web search to find recipes for the ingredients you are trying to use up.

Do what you can to stretch your food dollars through better storage, and you may find you have a few extra toonies and loonies kicking around for your efforts. A great place to direct those savings is an account with the Saskatchewan Pension Plan, a voluntary defined contribution plan that’s open to any Canadian with unused RRSP room. Join the 32,000+ who look to SPP to grow their savings — your future you will thank you!

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When star quarterback Tom Brady announced his retirement in the offseason – and then “unretired” soon afterwards, resuming his career – he was probably not aware of the fact that he’s a trendsetter.

More and more of us are “unretiring,” reports Edward Jones . “’Unretirement’ represents a growing trend among Canadians living in and approaching retirement,” an article on the firm’s website reports.  Citing recent Age Wave research, the article notes “33 per cent of recent retirees struggle to find a sense of purpose in retirement with new-found free time. Most Baby Boomers want to be more active, engaged, exploratory and purposeful in retirement than their parents and grandparents.”

So, for some of these folks, this leads to a desire to return to work, the article notes.

“When retirees stop working, it can create a void, often more social than financial. When asked what they miss most about their work life, 39 per cent of retirees say it’s the people and social stimulation, with only 22 per cent saying it’s the pay. The loss of social connection can lead to harmful isolation,” the article notes.

Okay, missing the work colleagues and all the social interactions can be part of it. Another part of it can be not having enough money in retirement, reports The Express.

“Given that living costs are rising and pay growth is pretty strong too, we might expect to see more people coming back to work through the winter and into the new year, particularly with vacancies so high and with so many employers keen to recruit,” Tony Wilson of the Institute for Employment Studies tells The Express.

The latest U.K. data finds that one in eight pension-aged Brits, a total of 1.46 million pensioners, are “in work,” with those over 65 being able “to claim a state pension while still working.” A further six per cent of current retirees are said to be thinking of making a return to work “to top up their pension income,” the article notes.

Investment News, looking at the U.S. market, says it may also simply be the great number of unfilled jobs out there that is leading to older workers being “actively recruited” for a return to work.

“We need older workers to stave off inflation and get the economy back on track,” states demographer Bradley Schurman in the article. “They are a key ingredient to solving the massive imbalance in the demand and supply of labour, which has created the ideal environment for the Great Resignation to thrive and is a contributing factor to increasing prices.”

The article makes the point that the waves of resignations by younger workers in the latter stages of the pandemic crisis led to job openings not seen since the Second World War.

“Today’s employment pictures looks a lot less like the pre-pandemic years and a lot more like those during the post-World War II, when America relied on older workers to fuel growth,” states Schurman in the article.

So, putting this all together, there are three factors that may be driving the “unretirement” trend. First, some older folks miss being at work and interacting with colleagues. Second, many retirees find (particularly with high inflation on the upswing) that retirement isn’t as affordable as they thought – so they go back to work due to income needs. The third idea expressed here is that the Great Resignation has created vacancies, and recruiters are looking to retired, experienced workers to plug employment gaps.

It’s an interesting phenomenon, and certainly is not something we saw when our parents retired. Typically, they left at age 65 and “fully retired,” with most never working for wages ever again.

Whether or not you become an “unretiree” one day, you’ll still want to have some retirement savings in your piggy bank. If you don’t have a pension plan through your workplace or if your workplace wants to introduce a pension plan, the Saskatchewan Pension Plan may be worth a look. This open defined contribution plan is available to anyone with registered retirement savings plan room. SPP will carefully invest any contributions you make and can help you turn them into retirement income when you finally put down the hammer for the last time. Check them out today!

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The start of a new year often has us thinking of things we “resolve” to do – changes we want to make – in 2022.

Save with SPP had a look around the “information highway” to see what people are resolving to do on the all-important savings front.

From The Guardian , ideas include getting debt-free, starting a rainy day fund, and to “have a goal” for savings. The newspaper notes that debt is a real barrier to savings.

“There is no point trying to save if you are burdened by costly debts,” The Guardian reports. While savings accounts in the U.K. pay only about 0.2 per cent interest, the article continues, credit card, store card or overdraft debts may be “in excess of 20 per cent.”

Writing for the GoBankingRates blog via Yahoo!, John Csiszar suggests resolutions should include “bumping up your retirement plan contributions by one per cent,” reviewing your spending from 2021, and that you “don’t buy anything until you get rid of something else.”

Increasing your contributions to a retirement account (here in Canada, this might refer to a Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP), or your Saskatchewan Pension Plan account) by one per cent is, Csiszar writes, an achievable goal. If you earn $50,000 a year, and are contributing five per cent to a retirement plan, he writes, bumping that up by one per cent will boost your retirement savings by $41.67 per month.

Back in the U.K., The Express recommends dropping costly habits, “start counting the pennies” (or nickels here in Canada), and following the 50/30/20 rule.

“Allocate 50 per cent for essentials, such as rent, mortgage and bills, 30 per cent for `wants’ such as hobbies, shopping or subscriptions, and 20 per cent for paying off debt or building up savings,” the article suggests.

Finally, MSN Money adds a few more – review your retirement plan contributions (to ensure you are contributing as much as you can), contribute to both “traditional” retirement savings accounts (here in Canada, an RRSP or SPP) as well as tax-free savings vehicles (for Canadians, the Tax-Free Savings Account) and increase any automatic savings you have going.

These are all great strategies. Another one to add is to live within your means. Don’t spend even a nickel more than you earn, because that overspending can snowball on you. Pay the bills, then pay yourself (and your future self), and spend what’s left over. As the bills go down, you’ll have more to save.

And the SPP allows you to make contributions the easy way – automatically. You can set up a pre-authorized payment plan with SPP and have your contributions withdrawn painlessly every payday. It’s easier to spread your contributions out throughout the year in bite-sized pieces than to try and come up with one big payment at the deadline. And the good folks at SPP will invest your contributions steadily and professionally, turning them into future retirement income. It’s win win!

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