The top retirement priorities for Canadian baby boomers are living comfortably and having the health to enjoy it. However, 44% express concern about outliving their retirement savings, finds a Scotiabank study.
“Canadians will be living longer and healthier lives than in previous generations, and with that comes the necessity to have the funds to live out their retirement years as they have planned,” says Andrew Pyle, senior wealth advisor at ScotiaMcLeod.
He suggests keeping a financial tracking sheet in retirement that’s “no different than when you were working – tracking what goes in versus what goes out.”
Read: Boomers fall short on retirement planning
Other key findings include:
- maintaining a comfortable living (37%), meeting their health-related needs and keeping healthy (31%) and travelling (15%) are their top priorities for their retirement years;
- most believe they’ll be more active (62%), relatively better off financially (54%), retired longer (44%), and healthier (41%) than their parents in retirement;
- one-half believe they’ve done a great deal (13%) or quite a bit (39%) of planning for their financial needs in retirement, while a further 31% have done some planning and 15% have done very little planning or none at all; and
- the number one step toward preparing for retirement is saving as much as they can (26%), followed by having a RRSP (22%) and investments (13%).
“Canadians who have insufficient funds in their retirement years can not only constrain their lifestyle choices, but also significantly impact their overall health and well-being,” says Dr. Samir Sinha, director of Geriatrics at Mount Sinai and the University Health Network Hospitals. “Successful aging should no longer be solely centered around our health but ensuring that we will have the financial resources to not only live longer, but also live well.”