Millennial Money Meetup #5: Getting Ready for Retirement

To learn more about this event & to be notified of when the next one will occur, visit millennialmoneymeetup.com.

For my one and only Millennial Money Meetup of 2018, I was able to host my event once again in Toronto for Financial Literacy Month, in partnership with the Financial Services Commission of Ontario (FSCO).

I’ve worked with FSCO in the past to educate Canadians about mortgages and mortgage brokers, and personally just love the financial education they make such an effort to put forth. So, it was a pleasure to team up with them again for one of my events to educate attendees about retirement planning and pensions.

This was actually great timing too because after sharing my podcast episode all about the Canada Pension Plan, I got several enquiries from listeners about having someone on the show to discuss defined benefit and defined contribution pensions. Well, I had a pensions expert join me as my special guest, Tim Thomson, who is a technical expert at FSCO and pretty much knows everything there is about pensions and how to integrate them into your own retirement plan.

The 3 Pillars of Retirement

We started our talk by discussing the 3 pillars of retirement:

1. Publicly-funded plans administered by the government (CPP, OAS, GIS, GAINS)
2. Employment-based pension plans (Registered pension plan, registered savings plan)
3. Personal retirement savings

This sounds so simple breaking retirement savings down like this, but that’s because it is! So often I hear from people about how worried they are that they won’t be able to save up enough to afford retirement.

The thing is, you may not need to save it all up yourself. Personal retirement savings is only Pillar 3! Every Canadian also has access to Pillar 2 in the form of publicly-funded plans by the government to supplement your retirement savings. Plus, if you work for a company, there’s a good chance you’ll also have a work pension or Group RRSP. This should hopefully put your mind at ease since both Pillars 1 and 2 could have a big impact on your retirement savings.

How Much Personal Retirement Savings Is Enough?

Speaking more specifically about personal retirement savings, another common question I get asked is how much should you put aside. How much is enough? We keep hearing numbers like in order to retire you’ll need $1-2 million, but how much should I be saving for retirement today?

Most experts suggest saving 10-20% of your net annual income as a good starting point. Saving more than that will just mean you’ll be even more financially comfortable in retirement, so saving as much as you can is really the answer here.

What Are the Steps to Crafting a Retirement Plan?

People love to talk about retirement plans, but what does that really mean, and how does one make one themself? It’s really easy. You absolutely can make your own retirement plan, but if you want to work with a professional financial planner it’s still important to know what retirement planning looks like.

Here are some steps to get you started:

• Gather your financial documents, such as pension plan paperwork, bank statements, RRSP statements, TFSA statements, other investment statements, and tax returns.
• Make a list of current expenses, debts, and loans.
• Assess how much you’ll need in retirement. A helpful calculator is the Government of Canada’s Retirement Income Calculator.
• Understand how much you could receive from CPP, OAS and GIS.
• Find your retirement number!

Make Retirement Planning a Priority in Your Financial Life

Even if retirement is decades away, the only way to ensure you’ll be prepared for when the day comes is to start planning early. This is why I highly recommend checking out FSCO’s new website all about the ins and outs of retirement planning and pensions.

Set some time aside to look through the entire site, make a checklist of the things you need to do, then make it your goal to have all those items checked off your list before this time next year!

Watch the Full Video Panel Discussion

Now, if you couldn’t attend my Millennial Money Meetup, or missed the live stream on Facebook, never fear! I got you covered! I’m including the full video of the panel discussion above for your viewing pleasure, but you can also watch it on my YouTube channel.

Listen on SoundCloud

If you’d rather listen than watch the entire panel discussion, you can listen to the SoundCloud player below, or subscribe to Mo’ Money Podcast on iTunes, Spotify or Stitcher.

Check Out Photos from the Event

Want to see all the photos taken at the event? Check out the full photo library on Facebook.

Got a Money Question?

As a fun activity at all my meetups, I include a money question box for attendees to write into. This helps me gauge what people want to learn more about for future events and in general. If you have a money question you’d like me to know about it, leave it in the comments below!