Retirement

Much is written about investing during your working years, but surprisingly little about investing in retirement. How much money should you keep in stocks after retirement? One rule of thumb says the percentage of equities in your portfolio should equal 100 or 110 minus your age, meaning someone turning 70 would have just 30 to…

Once you stop working your objective shifts from growing your investment portfolio to generating income from it. Many retirees obsess over generating enough retirement cash flow from their investments. They prefer a predictable stream of income to partially replace their previous salary income. Here are some strategies for getting cash flow from your retirement portfolio:…

You’ll soon be heading into retirement. You’ve thought about what retired life will look like for you and your spouse (if you have one) and approximately how much this lifestyle is going to cost you. A good retirement budget will not only cover your day-to-day life but will also take into account such things as…

Are Canadians on the brink of a retirement crisis? Private sector pensions have all but disappeared, and one in three Canadians are nearing retirement without any savings. A growing number of seniors are not only carrying mortgage debt into retirement, but also represent an increasing number of bankruptcy filings. Add longevity risk – the prospect…

Young people can take advantage of decades of TFSA contribution room to accumulate enough savings to be well positioned for retirement when the time comes. But for those close to, or already in retirement, TFSAs have not been around long enough to be a large portion of retirement savings. It’s more likely that you have…

If your retirement date is approaching, are you ready for this major life change? Your regular paycheque will be ending, and your income must come from other sources. By now you should have some idea of how you’d like to spend your retirement – what activities you will enjoy; where you will want to live.…

It’s likely that investing for retirement is the most long-range, expensive goal most of us will ever face. In the early years that far off future can be pretty vague, and many of us wait until we actually retire before putting a plan together, if we plan at all. Smart retirees start thinking about what…

The Federal and Provincial finance ministers met again earlier this week to pursue their ongoing discussions on how to improve the Canada Pension Plan. The majority of the provinces agreed to make the following changes to CPP: New CPP Changes Explained 1. “Drop-out” becomes “drop-in” Currently, CPP recipients can drop years of lower earnings from…

A reader suggested I expand on my post on converting RRSPs to RRIFs to include locked-in plans. So here it is. Thank you, Frank. What is a LIRA? First, let’s review. Employees enrolled in a registered pension plan who remain with their company until the prescribed retirement age will receive income for life from the…

Remember going to a craft and hobby show, or looking through a magazine, and seeing in your mind’s eye all those great projects you could make? Or watching the sports channel and dreaming about aces, holes-in-one, or the salmon you could catch? When most of us imagine retirement, our minds wander to what we’ll get…