Nearly a quarter of retired Canadians are forced to drastically cut down their expenses
Nearly three out of four (72%) Canadian seniors admitted that retirement is not working out as well as they anticipated, according to a new Sun Life Financial Inc. survey released earlier this week.
The findings were based on an Ipsos poll conducted upon 2,151 employed Canadians aged 20 to 64, along with 750 retirees aged 55 to 80.
Around 23% of those surveyed said that they had to significantly dial down their expenses upon reaching retirement age, “following a strict budget and refraining from spending money on non-essential items,” the Financial Post reported.
More crucially, 65% of those still working after retirement said that it’s because they need the additional income, not because they like working for working’s sake. And fully 44% of working pre-retirement Canadians are anticipating that they’ll still be employed full-time by age 66.
Many Canadians have bet on residential property as an evergreen investment, but worrying signs of housing as a significantly flawed retirement plan have already emerged.
“More and more Canadians are retiring with a mortgage, which 30 years ago would have been unheard of. People are retiring with debt, with a mortgage, simply because they just didn’t plan well,” Carte Wealth Management’s Jacqueline Porter told the Toronto Star earlier this year.
“I have conversations with clients all the time. Freedom 55 is out the window.”
The phenomenon is driven by the mistaken assumption that economic and housing growth will be unending, Porter added.
“You can’t look at the last 40 years and think that’s what’s going to happen the next 40 years, especially as people continue to use their home as a piggy bank.”
