The Baby Boomers Retirement Blog

101 Ways To Retire–Or Not! Active Retirement in the 21st Century from Sue Perlgut on Vimeo.

Unless things change fast, human history will show that the phenomenon of “retirement” was limited to one generation. After World War II, when European and Japanese economies stood in tatters, American capitalism could fulfill “the American dream,” since there was little foreign competition to speak of. For the first time ever, workers were promised that — after working thirty or so years — they would be able to securely retire. That was largely the case… for one generation.

The second generation is having a devastating reality check. 2008 was supposed to be a watershed year for retirement: it was the first year that the baby-boomers turned 62, and the retirement frenzy was to begin (since people could begin to draw on their social security benefits). Early in the year, however, a study was conducted that found one-fourth of these boomers were delaying retirement (only the baby-boomers who were actually able to plan for retirement were studied). The economy has since nosedived, and many more retirements are being delayed. The unfortunate reality is that many who planned on retiring will work until the grave, joining the millions of other baby-boomers who never had such dreams.

The other day I had a discussion about my Pension Report (download it if you don’t have it yet) with two young men of my son’s age: early thirties. They were trying to convince me that the report together with upcoming Pension Manual might be useless, since the Baby Boomers — you, the Boomers, as they put it — are the biggest spenders of all times and the highest earners as well. While all that is true, I know for sure that the other half of the equation is also true. Namely, that we, the Baby Boomers are not prepared for our retirement. Read this random quotations from very respectable studies and reports, and you be the judge: The comprehensive study of nearly

Lately quite often during discussions with my clients about the retirement perspectives of the Baby Boomers I hear a question like this: Is the looming pension crisis of the Baby Boomers related to the recent financial meltdown? My answer is always no, and here is why. The visible signs of the financial crisis we are going through started to show up just at the end of last summer and then during the fall of 2008. (The root causes have been present much earlier, but now we will skip the analysis of the credit crunch…) On the other hand, the signs — the writing on the wall, if you wish — telling about the pension gap threatening the Baby Boomers were obvious for quite a

Boomers’ retirement dreams fade — this was the headline of a recent article in the Toronto-based Financial Post, and it said: This week’s fiscal update from the federal Conservative government has become something of a tipping point for Canada’s march toward long-sought changes to the pension system. On Thursday, Jim Flaherty, the Finance Minister, said he would work with the provinces on issues related to defined-benefit (DB) and defined-contribution plans, “with a view of making permanent changes to the framework” next year. Read the rest of the article in FP… About the author Istvan Horvath is an author, blogger, former journalist, a

Yes, that’s the first rule when making decisions about your pension and retirement investments. Don’t ever panic! Acting under the pressure of fear, anxiety and other emotional factors… will always result in bad decisions. Knee jerk reactions have no place when you make a decision that could affect your long term wealth. I am aware that the media is bombarding you, and everybody else, with horror stories about the market meltdown and the looming economic catastrophe. Just say NO to all of them. The “news factories” are not reporting the news: they create the horror news to attract more viewers, readers, visitors. They indulge in these ‘crisis’

TORONTO (Reuters) – Canadian companies are warning the government they could go bankrupt without relief from federal pension funding standards, that are harder to meet due to the recent market sell-off, the Globe and Mail newspaper said Wednesday. The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, which oversees about 1,400 federally regulated pension plans, confirmed that it has met with companies which are concerned the market turmoil will make it difficult to meet their pension funding requirements… Read the rest of the article About the author Istvan Horvath is an author, blogger, former journalist, a passionate advocate of the Baby Boomers, and the founder