Is Retirement Dead?
Bold headline, yes, but I didn’t make this up – this came from a recent article I read stating Retirement Is Dead thanks to wage stagnation, inflation and sheer bad luck for some Gen Xers.
I tackle that subject and feedback about the article I read in today’s post!
Is Retirement Dead?
First, a link to the article written by Bruce Grierson who lives in Vancouver and from the Maclean’s article, while he has plenty to be grateful for at age 63, Bruce still lives:
“…in the little townhouse my wife and I own in North Vancouver, where we raised our two girls…but I’m no longer wondering how to have a brilliant career. Instead, I’m wondering if I’ll ever be able to stop.“
Source: https://macleans.ca/longforms/retirement-is-dead/
Bruce goes on to write:
“I’m terrible with money—ironic, given that I have a degree in economics. This has become a running joke in my household.”
This self-admission makes me wonder how other people navigate their personal finances and try to overcome the barriers that come with money management. Despite some level of financial literacy, does Bruce or his wife:
- Have a sustained interest in personal finance? Is there motivation to learn?
- Budget or tried to budget?
- Have any emotional or psychological factors to overcome?
One of the best financial books I’ve read, The Investor’s Manifesto by William Bernstein, talked about the attributes of a successful investor:
- They must possess an interest in the process,
- They need more than a bit of math horsepower, far beyond simple arithmetic,
- They need a firm grasp of financial history, and
- They need “the emotional discipline to execute their planned strategy faithfully, come hell, high water, or the apparent end of capitalism as we know it.”
But #1 is key for a reason: if no interest then hard to move forward to future steps.
This is a world-famous neurologist, so he knows what he’s talking about.
Bruce goes on to share in his article:
“By 50, claiming the living-room chair as a “home office” on my taxes, I nixed the system: I needed the envelopes to pay some bills. I regretted never getting into the stock market. I really regretted burning through the small monthly annuity my grandfather had set up for me when I was born.”
Certainly some baggage with his regret and potentially a bias to enjoying today vs. looking at tomorrow.
I get that.
There are temptations everywere to spend money.
Nobody really wants you to save your money – some people don’t get paid when you do that. 🙂
Bruce is right to highlight the landscape of Canadian retirement has changed dramatically in recent decades triggering more accountability.
- Gone are the days of working for the factory or main employer for 30-40 years and calling it quits with a workplace pension. Job security and pension security are fading.
- Workplace defined benefit pensions are disappearing or being replaced by defined contribution pension plans or group RRSPs. In this shift, there has been a transfer of investment risk from the employer to the employee.
- There is now an alphabet soup of accounts to learn: FHSA, TFSA, ISA and more – accounts, rules and products within them to own that didn’t exist even 20 years ago or less.
But these changes aren’t bad things unto themselves.
For example, the modern retirement today can include work optional or work on your own terms with no end date in mind – something I’ve personally thought and written about more than decade ago in my early 40s.
I prefer Financial Independence Work On Own Terms (FIWOOT) versus FIRE
I think the thing that reasonated with me the most in the article was this from Bruce:
“So you start running the numbers. When can I afford to retire? We dread the answer even as we home in on it.”
It struck such a chord with me based on my biases I guess: retirement isn’t something you figure out at age 50 let alone age 63.
It’s a process that starts decades earlier.
…And therein lies the missing ingredient that most people may get wrong: retirement is not an age; retirement is certainly not some magic number, rather retirement or semi-retirement or becoming work optional as you wish requires initial and continual planning.
Your planning need not be perfect.
Our journey was not.
You simply need to start.
It’s the process of financial planning that’s important because those that fail to plan are usually planning to fail – they will come up short.
Bruce admitted quite a bit in that Maclean’s article and his heavy-dose of self-reflection was humbling to read.
I suspect there are many Bruce-like Canadians out there.
He could also be very correct that wage stagnation, higher inflation along with other macro-economic factors “…may also be the beginning of something much worse: the emergence of a permanent underclass that will simply never be able to retire.”
I hope he is wrong of course and regardless, you need to take matters into your own hands since you cannot control macro-wage stagnation, you cannot control inflation, and I doubt you can control larger events happening around the world…
My suggestion to you when it comes to money management (since I’ve made my fair share of financial mistakes over the years before early retirement!) is to look at the enemy in the mirror sooner than later and figure out what you’re good at and just as importantly what you need to learn.
Nobody is an expert on everything – even some financial gurus I know have gurus.
Money management is however a life skill – an important one hardly covered in our education system – so you’re largely on your own to define your level of interest, develop a bit of math horsepower, learn about financial history (so you don’t repeat mistakes), and acquire some emotional discipline to start your financial planning.
My take is retirement doesn’t need to die at all but you might have to figure out what retirement means to you and your family before you realize it.
Image/Source: The Behavior Gap, Carl Richards.
Mark
Thought for the week:
“There are some people whose confidence outweighs their knowledge, and they’re happy to say things which are wrong. And then there are other people who probably have all the knowledge but keep quiet because they’re scared of saying things.” – Helen Jenkins, on the problem of communicating scientific uncertainty.
Related Reading:
AND, the ABCs and 123s of any financial plan can be found below.
I have relatives completely unprepared for retirement like Bruce. Some still working in their late 60s and early 70s. They don’t have their health either so honestly retirement when it comes will be forced and not enjoyed (at least from my perspective). I took a completely different approach, nothing like my family or my spouse’s family. We are the only ones set up for retirement and who also paid for our kids university educations. I find it crazy that people don’t pay themselves first. It isn’t a difficult concept, but hard for people to execute.
I’ve had them say how “lucky” we are. Or how easy it’s been. Meanwhile we had years without major trips (camping only), were very frugal, never owned a car, bought a fixer upper house, etc etc. We made choices they didn’t. I would look at how they pay for a house cleaner, own 2 cars, put in a backyard pool, quit a contract and go overseas for a month or two to travel, etc. These are examples of different people. Now that we are retired early and travelling, they look at us without any self reflection. We did without a lot of things, made choices and now are enjoying the fruits of our labour. I don’t feel sorry for them at all. I just shake my head.
I do think teaching finance would be very helpful for kids in school. I’ve had to do it for my own kids. Neither is interested in investing – I hope one day it rubs off more. One is a saver, the other a spender. They both grew up in the same house with us as examples. We weren’t big spenders so if they wanted a special expensive pair of shoes (for example), they would have to top it up with their own money from working or birthday money. We heard a lot of sob stories about how their friends had everything. LOL
I have offered their 20-something friends assistance in setting up savings, budgets and basic investing but so far no one has taken me up on it.
Very interesting, Sandra.
Certainly your reply speaks to life-choices.
I also find it very odd that some people don’t understand a savings-first mentality. I guess I’m wired very different. You are, others are.
There is certainly luck involved, health, etc. but you do make a bit of your own luck in life too.
These are all choices in your comment:
-a house cleaner
-owning 2 cars
-owning a pool
-etc.
None of these things are absolute needs in life…
I think at the end of the day people need to look into the mirror and be happy/fulfilled with what they see. Some people due to difficult life-circumstances cannot save. Others have many choices and opportunities in life and probably just don’t understand them or realize them.
Hardly perfect here = far from it! I’ve made many mistakes in life and with money.
But generally speaking I would like to think I’ve/we’ve made more good decisions over the years than bad ones.
I appreciate your comment!
Mark
I suppose I sound very entitled but I do get tired of it. I came from a poor upbringing and we used food banks to survive, couldn’t heat the house, etc. partly due to my parent’s inability to earn and plan. I vowed I wouldn’t do the same so I was highly motivated to succeed. I borrowed to get a university degree and then got two. I worked my way up taking whatever jobs I could even though they weren’t in my field of study. I eventually started my own business and saved there too (right or wrong LOL). My spouse also grew up poor in the US living off of powdered milk and eggs, free school breakfasts, etc. I think that’s why we are both so frugal and don’t need for much. We use things until they break and are never early adopters of new technology.
It’s true, I’ve seen many people struggle to get to retirment especially due to divorce. At the same time, I’ve seen people make excuses and blame the government or “the man” for not getting ahead. Meanwhile, they are happy to have free health care, EI and welfare benefits without thinking twice.
I do count myself lucky but it also required hard work to get to where we are. And with investments I made my fair share of mistakes. I can’t cry over spilled milk. Even with those mistakes we are in good shape and retired early.
Sandra, when I read your story above, the word entitled is the last thing that would have crossed my mind. You and your husband have a lot to be proud of. Many could learn a great deal from your experiences and accomplishments.
Very thoughtful comment, Jimmy.
Thanks for that.
Mark
Thank you too, Mark!
Thanks Jimmy! I appreciate that. I have talked to friends and family about FIRE and the various versions of it, but their eyes gloss over. I’ve been pitching my kids as well, and given the current state of affairs (trade war, the rise of authoritarianism, climate change) they aren’t very optimistic. I told them the world looked bad for us too in the ’80s – a hole in the ozone, cold war, nuke protests. All I can do is offer my DIY services, but people don’t seem to want to do it. It’s a small group of us who do what Mark and his wife have done
Great stuff.
Mark
Sandra,
You have nothing to be entitled about…and I suspect your lessons learned from your parents are both part of nuture and nature – brought you to where you are…
“I borrowed to get a university degree and then got two.”
Great reading.
I have two degrees as well.
I think the thing that some level of scarcity teaches you is work ethic.
The current generation has very little from what I can see….
We have made a large volume of mistakes in life. But we dusted ourselves off and got up off the mat. We learned and we moved on.
I can’t speak for others but from what I am reading here, you’ve done very well through a mix of applied learning and continued education/learning.
Well done.
Mark
“I have two degrees as well.”
Jeez, do I ever feel inferior….I dropped out of high school. Me and formal education just never got along. 😉
My father was a teen during the Depression and did a short backpacking trip through Northwestern Europe in his later 20’s so I’m guessing a bit of his experiences may have rubbed of on me. Not too sure that in today’s society kids will pick up as much from their parents due to outside forces (read social media) as our generation did.
I didn’t have any skills,resources or connections, Lloyd. I had some brains so that’s why I did it. I am not convinced a uni degree is all that helpful today unless it’s a very specific job (like a dr, lawyer, accountant). Trades and college skills are more likely to get a young person a job. The earlier they can earn a decent living and save 10%, the sooner they can get off the hamster wheel.
Lloyd, it’s not about the education but how you use your education. That you have. 🙂
I would agree with your take of “today’s society kids”… Not great examples out there at times these days.
Mark
A comma changes everything….”today’s society, kids”.
My bad.
LOL, I know what you meant.
I graduated from the education system after 30 years and have taught entrepreneurship classes, career studies courses, and English at all levels. It sounds like a gold-plated idea, but financial literacy being taught in high school is a waste of time, as most teenagers only pay attention to material that means something to them right now.
I have witnessed students, who couldn’t pass any academic course with much more than a 50, spend concentrated hours studying for their driver’s test. My own daughter aced all her spelling tests in elementary school because there was a prize, but she couldn’t spell worth a darn leaving high school. She now writes and spells very well because her job in travel demands it.
Most kids don’t experience real money today because their parents give it to them without any friction or explanation. Financial literacy for them would be Charlie Brown’s teacher expounding on grammar and unicorns. Parents are the best teachers and models, but only three of our four kids got the saving lesson, as our non-saver was always in class but not present. He has come round, but it took 4 years of not filing taxes to wake him up. He was lucky that his parents helped him care at the right time.
Australia has compulsory voting with a minor fine if you don’t vote. I think our government should deposit a small amount in a TFSA for each adult having a successful completion of a financial literacy seminar. You are targeting the young adults at the right time of their life.
Excellent comment, Dave.
Wild times in our education system – not in a good way!!
I see that a lot these days from my GenX cohort:
“Most kids don’t experience real money today because their parents give it to them without any friction or explanation.”
How are kids supposed to learn without carrots (i.e., incentives?) or consequences (i.e., bad outcomes) as I see it? That’s where real change happens in life. Ideally, carrots are better than consequences….
Your point about our government making a TFSA deposit is more of the “carrot” approach. I don’t mind that approach but there also needs to be deterrents to save young people from themselves. Lots of that support is needed these days…
I know my big incentive was nobody was going to help me learn this stuff so I had to teach myself. So far, so good.
Mark
Very nicely articulated Mark!
Thanks, Alan!!
Agree “Money management is however a life skill”, yes it should get more attention in HS. However you can not engineer human behavior which makes it difficult to appreciate the virtuous of investing over the long term. I know many Bruce like folks, risk is not well understood thus avoided. You can lead a horse to water but… It will require much bigger changes than just education.
Unpopular but I disagree on wages and inflation, yes Canada feels expensive but both average and median wages have more than kept up over the long run. The “underclass” has been here for decades and is defined by lack of assets not necessarily wages although housing also plays a big role. This is, imo the outcome of choices we made over time it’s by design not chance. We choose to become “Americanized’ for lack of a better term with minimal social structures, creation of a credit/pay to play society and emphasis (I dare say guise) on personal accountability even if many, like Bruce on their own accomplished, lack the recourses to be financially successful. This feels odd bc we do not expect everyone to be their own engineer or physician but somehow financial planning and asset management is different?
Other places have made different choices and therefor have different outcomes when it comes to i.e. retirement which is not dead btw. It took me some time to make the mental switch from one to the other not recognizing the outright need to save and invest 20% plus of your income consistently and becoming somewhat proficient in personal finance.
Live and learn.
Your comments are always thoughtful….
Yes, you can lead a horse to water which is why I like the Bernstein stuff so much since you have to have a motivation (or consequences) to fuel learning – otherwise it does not happen.
I agree with you that the “underclass” has been existing in Canada for decades and it’s getting worse.
I believe the solution is education and greater literacy, so folks in all facets of life can make better, informed, choices. Higher education, sustained literacy in many life-skills is the key to prosperity. Address that and other social issues won’t need as much attention. The challenge then becomes how to grow a wider, more educated and more literate population base.
Live and learn can work only if folks know what to learn from.
Mark
I try:) I think this is a great topic to cover, a lot of comments are quite on point good stuff!
I agree with Dave C same experience with my kids, a solid foundation in school is good say make it a must pass grade 12 course but ultimately kids need role models as much as knowledge, I wish I had one in my 20’s. I honestly doubt it would make a big difference many folks are not good with money and will need some supervision. We are simply not wired that way, to borrow from Pearl Jam we are just mammals wearing pants.
I would prefer a more hybrid European approach with higher forced saving levels, things like a minimum RRSP contribution + match, bigger CPP even borrow ideas from 401K’s but at lower MER’s etc. It’s clear to me that the current approach is not working well for too many which will have consequences for us all. But that’s politics, good thing we have MOA!
Hard to argue with Dave’s comments. I mean, this brings up a nature vs. nuture debate too.
I would think most kids are somewhat products of their environment – so good role models are certainly an enabler.
But beyond role models, there is also personal accountability and responsibility. Seems to be more rare these days.
Forced savings are good – to save people from themselves since good habits are very hard to create and sustain in life in so many ways. 🙂
I’m of two minds on this topic. On the one hand, I totally get how and why people fail to do any personal financial planning to prepare their golden years. With a father who was an underground miner until his retirement at 60, and who didn’t think that saving was going to make any material difference to his retirement, I had a front row seat to this decades long process of willful blindness, which I know is not unfamiliar to many Canadians. Personal finance can be intimidating, in part because it’s personal. There’s no obvious template.
On the other hand, retirement may be dead for Bruce Grierson but it will be well deserved for him, I believe. He’s highly educated, extremely articulate and well informed. Why the pity parties and envy of those who “divide their time between….”. Less than 10 years ago, I heard Bill Bernstein describe how he left his job as a clinical neurologist after 18 years of practice because he was burning out and could see that his financial future was not going to be what he had hoped for. So he jumped into personal finance learning. I was inspired and did the dame and agree with him (and you) that some understanding of financial history, some emotional discipline, and a firm commitment to ongoing lifelong learning about personal finance will typically make the difference between joining the pity parties and thriving. In the end, it’s called personal accountability, which, sadly, appears to be in short supply in Canada’s victimhood mindset these days. But that’s a different subject.
I’m not a fan of victimhood to use your words…and that can apply to many things.
Interesting comments and reflections about your father vs. Bruce in this example.
Bruce hinted as his wife’s job in the article so he won’t be totally poor with a teachers pension plan in the household – so retirement is not really dead for him. 🙂
I heard the same story about Bernstein – very bright guy of course.
Have you read any of his books?
Cheers,
Mark
Having a degree in Economics doesn’t make one financially literate. Like a Solicitor who dies without a Will, or a Financial Advisor sucked into an email scam promising millions (happened to one in Kelowna BC some years ago), or a low income earner who buys lotto tickets – your legacy or fortune should be defined by trusting your gut and preparing for the worse. Hope is not an option!
One of the greatest shocks you’ll ever get in life will be old age; it gradually “then suddenly” is upon you. Turning a salary/wage into significant income generating assets over decades will mitigate it.
I agree, Barry, I put that in another comment too, re: just because you study it does not mean you can apply it nor practice it. 🙂
It is our hope as you know we can largely live off the dividends and distributions for cashflow for the coming years, and then, add on my small DB pension + CPPx2 + OASx2 eventually too. That should be plenty for retirement spending.
We also feel it’s important to spend the money while we can while in our 50s and 60s since to your point, those 70s will arrive (health willing) and we might have missed many fun things to do with our time and energy. Life is short and precious.
Thanks for your feedback,
Mark
Strongly advise to get out there in the world while still relatively young and healthy. I’m 73 and feel OK but wife has health problems and this greatly affects her travel lust … although she would like to. She’s a good walker but nothing too adventurous. Fortunately I travelled the globe A LOT in my time so it’s not such a big deal and love her companionship no matter what or where.
.
Awesome, Barry. We have some trips planned for later this year and early 2027.
Currently looking at more overseas stuff in later/fall 2027 and potentially 2-3 weeks in Japan in early 2028.
So, retirement income planning is mostly about our travel budget of late.
Yes, father time catches up with all of us so trying to stay in shape more. Going out for another 15-20 km bike ride today while the weather is nice in Ottawa again.
Cheers,
Mark
That might be an interesting poll type article. What were people’s actual time frames for the commonly used retirement classification periods? How many years did people actually fit into the go-go, slow-go and no-go times? I see the finfluencers and YTers use age spreads, but it might be interesting to see how that pans out in reality. It never worked out for us, we went into “can’t go” to now “don’t wanna go”. 🙁
The thing with many Finfluencers or YTers is they talk about things but haven’t done it.
I’ve been fortunate (I guess?) via this site to say what I’m gonna do, follow it/monitor it, then realize it. Made both mistakes but also had some success.
Rarely do things work out the way you want them too in life but many Finfluencers or YTers will of course market something else.
I’ve survived since starting to invest in the 1980’s by actually learning to keep things simple. With just basic high school graduation, I have no special skills. My math is just arithmetic, which I can now do on a calculator, because I’m lazy.
When things unraveled in the early 2000’s, with the loss of tech, I just found other sectors to invest in. Happened again in 2008-09 with the financial crisis. My investments in Canada did just fine. Investments in the U.S. and Europe turned in disastrous results.
I missed the whole multi-year U.S. Mag 7 bull market starting around 2010. You miss em, you miss em.
I just carry on with our global ETF’s in the RRIF’s and TFSA’s. The latter we add to every year. The non-registered is all-Canadian individual dividend paying stocks. I get enough money each month where I can re-invest into the portfolio laggards. Even with this year’s dividend cut to Telus, we should still have enough of an increase in income at the end of this calendar year that it will beat inflation. That’s my one and only target. Ben Graham and David Dreman lite. No stock analysis necessary, unless you really want to. Just stay far away from the crowd.
Yes, you and I and others have seen quite a few big corrections:
1. Dot-com.
2. GFC.
3. COVID-crash March 2020.
I’m very certain we will see more….
But that said, I feel confident like you in global ETFs that provide long-term growth over time in mostly registered accounts and like you, we own just (only) Canadian stocks in our taxable accounts for a mix of income and growth.
How many CDN stocks do you currently hold?
We’re about 25 now.
Stay the course and avoid the stock analysis crowd is right. 🙂
Thanks for your comment and nice to hear from you.
Mark
Up to 39 stocks in eight sectors now. Since I don’t do analysis, all quite easy. Most of them you’ll find in either XEI or CDZ.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend, Mark.
I hear ya. We’re about 25 CDN stocks + two main low-cost ETFs. That’s about it and very simple as you probably know from my site.
Would you ever reduce your 39 down to about 25-30?
Mark
Anything’s possible Mark, but I’m not looking to lower the number since where possible I like to keep a minimum of four or five companies in each sector. My only limit is finding enough companies on the TSX that I find interesting enough to start a position, start building that position over time, and finally hold in the portfolio for many years.
Very good. I mean, don’t fix what isn’t broken for you. 🙂
I had absolutely no plan when I started to save for retirement in my 20’s. I just knew I had to put money aside for retirement.
Just kept on doing it until, due to various employment choices and events, I was able to take management in to my own hands. Was still a learning curve though. Letting other people manage your money through their suggestions for mutual funds was not the greatest way to financial independence. Once I got my feet in to the stock market things started to look up.
I know people with a lot more education than I have and they do not want to know anything about managing their funds. To each their own.
YOU are responsible for your retirement. It doesn’t matter if you let others manage it or you manage it yourself. It is YOU who calls the shots.
RICARDO
Ricardo, sounds like you’ve done many good things well…including the understanding that “…letting other people manage your money through their suggestions for mutual funds was not the greatest way to financial independence.”
My site is all about that: “YOU are responsible for your retirement.”
I think if you are generally speaking, not ready for retirement, you need to look into the mirror for your answers.
Thanks for your comment!
This was a hot topic on Reddit when it came out. As many of us pointed out, the author’s wife is a teacher with a good pension from the BC teacher’s pension plan. Hardly, a dead retirement for them as a couple. The anecdotes and facts in the article ring true (although author is hardly Gen X at 63) it’s just that his own situation doesn’t fit the narrative. This would have been fine if it wasn’t written in a way as if he were a victim of poor circumstances, which he isn’t.
Also, let’s agree that degrees in economics, business, or whatever, don’t necessarily mean you are an expert at personal finance. Ben Felix is an engineer by training, as am I. We like to analyze the heck out of everything 😀
Yes, seems Bruce can take some liberties with work given his wife is a teacher – otherwise, maybe they wouldn’t be retiring at all?
Fully agree with the degree – just because you study it does not mean you can apply it. 🙂
I also wouldn’t call anyone age 63 GenX since that usually applies to anyone born after 1965 although dates vary on that!
How are things with you and your own investing?
Mark
Oh they would definitely be hard up if they didn’t have a pension to fall back on! Personally, I think the author could have made great points about how it will be difficult for Canadians to retire but you can’t make the article personal if your situation doesn’t apply. I certainly won’t say it was hard for us to retire, we were/are damn lucky to be where we are.
Good stuff, Bill.
I think Bruce is correct in that retirement may be harder for some Canadians for sure – but there are also part-time, side-hobby, and other freelance opportunities now (including for Bruce) that didn’t exist some 20- or 30-years ago either. So, retirement is changing and gone are the days where most just stop working cold-turkey at age 65 or so. That’s not a bad thing.
Douglas Coupland who coined the term Gen X with his Vista magazine articles (I still have my copies, hilarious comic book style) in the 80s was born in 1961, the people born 1960-1965 are definitely Gen X in their experiences with boomers but as you point out, the current definition is being born 1965+.
I read the full article on Macleans via your URL, sucks to be Bruce and not take ownership of his poor choices in life. A degree in economics and he couldn’t buy a mutual fund or stock? He goes on to blame the system for his missed opportunities and now he depends on his wife’s pension for retirement. The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, second best time is today; he needs to wakeup and get investing ASAP, it’s never too late.
Yes, well written related to the tree planting metaphor!
Age 63 does seem a bit late to complain about lack of retirement planning though!
How is your investing year coming along, Zack?
Cheers.
Mark, great article! If a person wants a nice retirement, you need a plan and you have to start early.
I’m not sure what constitutes “early enough”, in my case it was age 34 (1994) when my first son was born, that my wife and I put a serious plan together, including saving for retirement and saving for his post secondary education.
From that point on, it became a habit that carried us to retirement at 63 & 60 respectively.
63 is too late, 50 is probably too late as well to start saving for retirement (but maybe someone who started at 50 can prove that incorrect),
Two of our three sons have required “interventions” into there spending above there means, which was putting them into crisis.
Now all three have a plan and are following it. It’s amazing how one can’t image being able to live without spending every dollar in the pay cheque. Then, once the plan is enacted, don’t miss the money. Even more amazing that savings creates more flexibility just a few years into it.
Retirement is not dead. But it is certainly more challenging for the younger generation.
As to grumpiness, I had some myself upon reading Bruce’s article. Lloyd is bang on, there are consequences to each of our personal life choices.
Thanks, John!
Well, age 34 is pretty darn good…when you had your first son.
I would agree that age 63 is very late to figure much out if you haven’t considered anything for retirement yet.
I always started with a pay yourself first mindset. That was 30+ years ago. In some years, I could not payself very much. In other years, it was consistently >10% of my net income. I just kept at it until 2025 – the year before I retired (2026).
I would agree with you and Lloyd on choices in life and related consequences.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment.
Mark, this post is one of my favorites. One of the best you’ve written and something that anyone putting off understanding how pensions and investing work should consider.
The first step is to have a plan. It doesn’t need to be perfect and it cannot be perfect because the future is unpredictable.
Nice post!
Thanks very much for the kind words. Appreciated!
Yes, life is hardly ever perfect but it does not mean you should not plan a bit. 🙂
Mark
Life’s choices have consequences. It behooves one to be aware and accept that they themselves are most often the authors of their own story be it fortunate or unfortunate.
(Sorry, I’m a tad bit grumpy this morning)
Not grumpy at all. Life is full of choices every day whether folks realize them or not.
Unfortunate for Bruce and his family to figure out he (they) should have invested in equities (or in anything?) at 63.
Retirement is not dead. Long live retirement. In < 12 months for me after starting to save 30+ years ago at age 23 and can't wait to move on to things I want to do and people I want to do them with!
I was surprised to read at age 63, reflecting back to age 50, Bruce didn’t invest. Wild.
Sounds like you’re very close to your own retirement goals – well done Greg. Keep me posted.
Mark