Financial Library

Retirement: The Promised Land or Crushing Boredom?

For years, you have been anticipating that last day at work. When it finally arrives, will it live up to your expectations?

Retirement looks different in everyone’s imagination. For some, it means never wearing a tie again – for any reason. For others, it means traveling the world in designer clothes while attending fancy social events or elaborate musical performances. Some might envision it as a poolside chair with a cold glass of lemonade that never runs out.

While the lemonade may be in unlimited supply, your attention span is not. What happens if you get bored?

World Reserve Currency Regime

Canadians, like many nationalities, have a home bias when it comes to investing. The majority, if not all of their investments, such as RRSPs, real estate, mutual funds and businesses, are in Canada and are tied to its future economic growth.

These Canadian investments could see reduced returns in the future, however, due to a growing shift in the balance of economic power towards China and the East and away from the U.S. and Western countries.

Redefining Retirement

Retirement used to mean a gold watch, a pension and spending time on hobbies or new pastimes. For some this may still be true, but times have changed and there are new realities that will affect how retirement will look in the future.

The largest segment of the population in Canada today, the "Baby Boomers", started retiring in large numbers a few years ago. Those born in 1947 are considered the first Baby Boomers and they reached age 65 back in 2012. Many were in position to retire immediately while some of their peers have had to postpone or scale back their retirement plans.

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