I was reading the Yahoo news bulletins today and what should I come across but this article Fewer Canadians Saving for Retirement.. I read this and I wanted to go Duh!!! Kinda like that V8 commercial. I mean really, with the economic times being what they are, people are struggling just to make ends meet....planning for retirement right now is a luxury.
The information provided in this article came from the Royal Bank, again no surprise here. If we don't invest they lose money plain and simple. The cynical side of me says this is just the banks way of trying to get their grubby little hands on my money. They try and use the scare tactic that if you don't save now....blah blah blah....kind of like the Aesop fable about the ant and the grasshopper. Which I guess there is some merit. But times are tough so how do we make this happen?
I certainly don't want to end up having my meals in some soup kitchen. I certainly don't expect my kids to help support me in my aging years.....and I don't want to be put into an over priced and poorly run retiremen
t facility, so what's my plan. I really don't know. I do have a pension plan...but that certainly won't cover my bills. So I must have a plan. I guess the banks have got me. I've never really understood the concept of borrowing money to put into RRSP and then paying off the loan from your tax returns. Do you really get ahead? Ideally that sounds nice....but how many of you actually do that? When that tax return cheque comes, don't you have it ear marked for something else? I know I do. I did that RRSP loan thing one time I am not sure that it put me ahead of the game. I think this year I might look at doing monthly contributions....for example...I recently paid off my truck loan...so I figure I should just continue with that amount and put the money into an RRSP.What do you do? Do you even think about retirement? Do you have plans? The one thing I know is that I don't want to be eating cat food when I retire.
2 comments:
No real plans here either. One thing I do know I won't be eating cat food, to expensive. :)
I am "retired" now. Well, I am on Social Security anyway -for whatever that is worth. (Not much, for sure but it's better than having nothing.) Theoretically, we are supposed to "pay ourselves" first -put x number of dollars per pay into a savings or retirement plan and then, pay our bills after that. However, it's a great plan in theory but in reality, not so easy to do as way too many folks don't earn enough to pay for what they actually need from payday to payday, let alone taking out a percentage, even a very miniscule one, to put towards retirement. Wish they (the govt. and the banks too) could figure out a way to increase the pay for folks, then talk to us about savings and such. (Wish the banks could also be trusted to handle that money too and not just dole out the huge wages to the ceos that so many of them wheel they wages in by the barrel full to the bank or to their IRAs!
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