10/02/2010

thoughts on retirement

tonight, after a great day of talking wedding talk with my mom we started chatting about retirement income.  I'm really not sure how we got on the subject, but at 26 years old - i'm far too concerned about my life 30 years from now.  I get very stressed out thinking about our income in the future, when Jordan and I are both retired.

One, I worry because Jordan's job does not provide RRSP/Pension matching - and we're currently not really able to contribute to personal RRSPs more than we do now.  I know that will change, and heck, 30 years is a long time - but really, how long is it?

Do any of you worry about things so far in the future that you can't really plan for them?

I mean, how am I supposed to know how much income we'll need in retirement?  Who knows what our incomes will look like, what our savings will be and what kind of debt load will have.  Further to that, CPP and OAS are bound to change.  I think they will still exist - but to what extent?

le sigh.

2 comments:

  1. I am contributing 4 per cent. My employer puts in 2. (I think the same is happening for T but he hasn't had any actual paycheck slips so can't tell).

    It's not enough is it? It's never enough. But it's going to have to do, because living right now is important too.

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  2. It's good to think about it, and make a bit of a plan, even now at your age. When I was 30 I had saved about $16,000 in RRSP's. That was the year I met my hubby, who was going through a divorce and lost all his RRSP money to his ex-wife. So we started our relationship at 30 yrs old with a combined RRSP value of $16,000. Enter 4 children over the next 9 years and our ability to contribute more to our RRSP's was virtually stalled. 14 years later(we're now 44 yrs old) we've only added $7000 due to the high financial cost of raising a young family! ($4000 of which has been added only in this last year!) Keep that in mind if you plan on some day having children - you think you'll have MORE money down teh road because your income will go up, but your expenses will also go up with each child you add to your family. Being aware of your budget, as you are, will help tremendously so I predict you'll be a way better place than we are but my point is to truly give it thought today, even though retirement isn't for another 30+ years! It goes FAST! Good job on thinking it through already!!! Wish I had, then perhaps we would have made regular contributions all through my 30's instead of panicking once we hit our early 40's!!!

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