The Baby Boomers Retirement Blog

Québec’s new health care fee is just a small example of the price we have to pay for longevity and aging population. Let me explain this. The fee itself at $25 for 2010 and even increasing to $200 through the years is not something that would ruin any person’s finances (and, according to critics, it won’t even fix the system…). However, it is a sign showing the problem with the health care system(s) devised decades ago, when the life expectancy was less than today. At that time retirees used to live approx. ten years after retirement. Or even less. Nowadays people live 20-25 years after retirement. We live longer and longer… and according to the statistics

Many times I have been told that my Baby Boomer Retirement Blog presents an extremely dark picture of the future… Really? You can disagree with this blog but you can not totally ignore one of the most influential financial media outlet: the Wall Street Journal. Here is what they said recently: Is it too late to save your retirement? For many, the answer is surely yes. News out this week shows that 29% of those who have already retired have saved nothing at all to support themselves, while only a third have saved at least $50,000. To put this in context: A retirement account of $50,000 will provide a 65-year-old man with an annuity of just $4,000 a year. Does this sound to you as a

Almost everybody needs a digital pension. What the heck is a “digital pension”? – you may ask and you are right in doing so. Let me remind you that we live in a digital era. The Digital Revolution meant the end of the Industrial Age and the beginning of the Computer Age or Information Era. Nowadays, many people tend to think of the Information Age or Digital Era in terms of cell phones, digital music, high definition television, digital cameras, email on the Internet, the Web, and other relatively new products and services that have come into widespread use. The pace of change brought on by such technology has been very rapid. One of the biggest changes that influenced

It has been said quite a lot about the baby boomers’ inability to face the reality of aging and retirement. However, there is a survey at the Aging Hipsters – The Baby Boomer Generation, one of the leading boomers sites. The “boomer” survey has one simple question: Will you have enough money when it comes time to retire? Possible answer: No – Maybe – Yes. Not surprisingly, only 27.44%, which means one in four, answered with a sound yes. Almost half of the responders, 42.08% said NO, while the remaining 30.48% is uncertain (maybe). Let me translate to you the meaning of this third of answers: “most likely no but I am embarrassed to admit

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 [...]

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