Weekend Reading – Not Enough Retirement Savings
Hey Everyone,
Welcome to a new Weekend Reading – this one about not enough retirement savings…
First up, some recent posts on my site:
The annual RRSP contribution deadline for this tax year is coming up soon – March 3 – so along with that milestone date here are some RRSP facts and considerations you must remember this year and beyond!
And…more recently I have this new book giveaway on the go for you to enter; you can win a free autographed copy of Everything but Money from the author:
Weekend Reading – Not Enough Retirement Savings
Headlining this edition was this article and recent study from BMO:
BMO Retirement Survey: Over Three Quarters of Canadians Worry They Will Not Have Enough Retirement Savings Amid Inflation.
“Among the 63 per cent of Canadians who say rising prices are limiting their ability to save for retirement, the top four ways they are adjusting their financial planning are:
- Cutting other spending to maintain current retirement savings levels
- Putting less into retirement savings
- Planning on working longer
- Putting off retirement savings completely”
All very prudent measures: save more/work more, spend less, retire later.
Interestingly, this 2025 retirement “enough number” is down a good $150,000 since the last time BMO did a similar study. You might recall this post on my site:
Weekend Reading – Do you really need $1.7 million to retire?
Do you need $1 million to retire?
Do you need $1.54 million to retire?
Do you need $1.7 million to retire?
I’ve helped well over a hundred people answer this question in recent years via these low-cost services and I can help you out too of course, anytime, but for me part of the answer always comes back to a few simple steps:
- how much do you want to spend in retirement,
- what dependable income sources do you have in retirement, and what is the timing of those income sources.
You can check out my free playbook on those very subjects below:
Since inflation remains a huge headwind to combat throughout retirement, one of my personal solutions is to keep a heavy bias to stocks. Here is an older but very important article about inflation on A Wealth of Common Sense. In that post, Ben Carlson highlighted one of his favourite ways to combat inflation: the stock market.
“The stock market is a wonderful hedge against inflation for a few reasons. Since 1928, the U.S. stock market is up 9.8% per year while inflation has averaged 3% per year. So stocks have grown at nearly 7% more than the rate of inflation. One of the reasons for this is the fact that earnings and dividends also grow at a healthy clip above inflation. Over the past 93 years, earnings have grown at roughly 5% per year. Stocks also have perhaps the greatest income stream of any asset. Dividends have grown at roughly 5% per year.
So earnings and dividends both have a history of growing above the rate of inflation.”
Same thoughts here Ben.
Do you know your retirement income number? Is it close to those values above? How might you know? How is inflation impacting your portfolio plans and finally, do you invest in mostly stocks and equity ETFs like I do to combat inflation? Do share!
More Weekend Reading – Not Enough Retirement Savings
I’m travelling now at the time of this post so apologies if my comment replies are a bit delayed. I will get back to you – including any opportunties to deliver some low-cost retirement income projections reports your way too. 🙂
In my readings this week:
You already know home ownership and owning cars are the two biggest expenses you might ever have. This was a good post from RateHub.ca that highlighted the total cost of owning a car:
“According to our calculations, the average cash expense of car ownership totals $1,370 each month. This may differ depending on your specific case, but experts recommend that the cost be kept between 15-20% of your take-home pay.”
Not trivial depending on what you want to own.
Hindsight is always 20/20; not sure my Brookfield stock will grow this much in value (!!) but interesting all the same to see what some stocks deliver over long periods of compounding time!!!
Source: https://x.com/BarrySchwartzBW/status/1891577496241356872
While there are now nearly 1,500 ETFs to choose from in Canada, I believe there are only a few dozen to choose from. From this Investment Executive article I found:
“The report noted that over the past five years, an average of 119 active ETFs launched in Canada each year, almost double the amount of passive ETF launches.
As a result, the number of active ETFs has now surpassed the number of passive ETFs — more than half (53%) of the total in Canada are active, the report said.”
It’s no wonder some DIY investors have some paralysis from analysis – and why some advisors push investors into certain products. Be safe out there.
Related Reading:
A reminder I have completed and keep dozens of free retirement income case studies for you to check out on this page here.
Including this one:
Have a great weekend.
Mark
Mark
My name is Mark Seed – the founder, editor and owner of My Own Advisor. As my own DIY financial advisor, I’m looking to start semi-retirement soon, sooner than most. Find out what I did and how I realized Financial Independence to tailor your own path. Join the newsletter read by thousands. Always free.
