In a recent survey done up here in Canada, it was found that one in three Canadians are worried about retirement. This might sound funny at first since why would anybody not look forward to retirement?
But when the associated costs surface into reality, we start to understand why so many people are indeed worried about their future retirements. In fact, I’m a bit surprised that the statistics are not even higher than one in three.
High Costs Of Retirement
One of my friends has just placed her aging mother in one of those nice retirement community homes. These are not your usual nursing homes. They are more like high end condos that are built especially for seniors with all the nice facilities including meals and access to caregivers within the complex.
One might wonder how much it costs to live in a place like that but when my friend told me that it was $4,500 per month, I almost fell off my chair.
Such retirement homes are being built everywhere including some that went up right across from major retail areas in my community and I see the advertisements marketing these complexes in our community newspaper on a regular basis. There is indeed a market for such retirement homes but they are not cheap.
The fact is that many seniors (and their children) just do not want to be placed in nursing homes for the rest of their lives. These folks want to continue living a relatively active lifestyle and be involved with the community. They also want to live in nice places with a lifestyle they are use to.
Now, imagine continuing with such lifestyles in your senior years but without the financial funding of a regular full time job. The costs of a nice lifestyle are still up there but you no longer have that employment income to support it.
If you are a parent, factor in the costs of putting your kids through their college or university education as well and see how much you would still have for your retirement. Things get scary when you really start to think about the actual costs.
So can you now see why one in three Canadians are worried about their future retirements?
I’m willing to bet that if more people realize the various costs associated with retirement, this figure will increase. Most of us should be worried about retirement whether we can actually afford to retire or not.
Investing For Retirement
This is one of the main reasons why I’m no longer counting on my traditional investments like mutual funds, stocks, bonds and RRSPs to enable a comfortable future retirement for me. The returns with these investments are just too low so I’ve switched to become an active real estate investor.
I feel that real estate investing is the most feasible way to secure my future retirement. I’ll definitely write more about this in the future as well as develop a new speaking keynote program about financial freedom soon.
