Can you afford to retire?

[Darlene]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/retirement/

[canadian gardener]

It's a bit different in Canada, but not much.

A lot depends on where you work, whether you have a company funded plan, and if it's portable.

A lot of people aren't working fulltime with benefits, they are picking up a contract job, working a few years or working part time, then finding another job when that one gets downsized or changed.

Smaller leaner companies prefer part time or free lance workers that they don't have to pay benefits to.

It's really important to try to fund your own savings plan no matter what, but retirement often looks so very far away when you are struggling on a part time or contract worker wage that doesn't pay well.

Changes the landscape somewhat. Government assumes a lot about the work force. They base their ideas and projections on the way things used to be, not the way they really are now. They are working from the old model where people worked full time, with benefits for a medium to large company if they weren't a civil servant or a utility employee.

And a lot of governments at least here in Canada raided the funds for cheap money to fund the projects du jour without a thought about repaying the pension fund pool.

Now facing a huge demographic bulge of boomers intent on retirement, the funds aren't there anymore, and weren't adequate in the first place. After all govt projections were based on nearly all boomers working for a good wage with good benefits for most of their earning years.

Now that payout day is approaching, there are more who need extra govt funding for pensions, fewer who have those good retirement packages, and more yet coming up who will need help from the social safety net.

Pensions
Health Care (yup the costs for that are going thru the roof too)
Social Welfare

and all will be stretched to the limit.

[homesteadmamma]

The best thing to do about retirement - is get OUT OF DEBT!! You can live on a small amount of money if you are debt free.

The second best thing - start saving now. It doesn't matter if it's only a little amount each week, each paycheck or each month. Do it now - don't keep putting it off. Before you know it, retirement will be here and you won't have a penny saved.

Both Americans and Canadians used to be savers - not anymore. Society demands that we spend our money and for most, that is what they are doing.

Personally I think retirement will be totally different in 20 years as more and more people are working longer and longer, well into their 70's, especially now that the baby boomers are getting close to those magic numbers of 60 - 65. Baby boomers were big time spenders and now are having to pay for it. It will be very interesting to see what happens in the next few years.

[Telephus44]

Thanks for the interesting article - even though DH and I are only 31 and 28, we still are planning for our retirement (I have been since I graduated from college at 22). Of course, we still have a lot of question marks in our retirement plan (house, kids, etc) but it was nice to crunch the numbers and realize that right now we're setting aside 10.5% of our income (including company match) towards retirement, and this doesn't include the pension my company offers.