I wrote this when I was still in the Nortel Pension plan, but now I am in a safer pension fund as a Civil servant.
Another gloom and doom article asking the question will you be able to retire? I guess the optimistic question would be do I want to retire? My answer to that is, I want to stop working and instead do the things I want. I have a vocation, an employer, and an income, and I enjoy them, however, there are other things I’d rather be doing, and that is my goal to one day be doing, what I want to be doing.
So how do I get to this goal? Making sure I have my RRSP and Spousal RRSP cooking along is important. Getting out of debt is very important, but I am not doing too well with that one. There is an article detailing this losing battle (although the war will continue) once I can figure out how to word it correctly. Having my pension is part of this goal as well, and I know that my employer’s pension has a shortfall, so this is worrisome.
Other parts to my plan include well funded RESPs for my kids, to ensure that I don’t have to add debt to ensure my kids’ future is as good as I can. I hope the government starts figuring out that the working single income middle class is really getting the shaft these days, but I suspect I am a very loan voice shrieking at the storm, we shall see.
Your job for today, if you have a pension, find out if it has a shortfall? If so, when will it be fully funded? If not, why not!
