Monday, June 4, 2012

Fascination with Retirement

It seems everywhere I read people are talking about retirement. I do not understand the fascination. Why on earth are young people worried about OAS not starting for them until 67? If you are 20 or 30 and you are worried about retirement, I say get a life. It is not like I am saying not to save. Everyone needs to save for future rainy days.

However, I think that we should be more focused on what we are going to do because we are going to live a long time. A more important question might be is “how are we going to ensure we stay health so we can enjoy our long life?”

It is not as if you would will get to retirement and just have a few years to enjoy it. Life expectancy is 81 years on average. Also, if you do get to 65 the average life expectancy is now 85. That means that at age 65 average life expectancy is now 20 more years. (See Statistics Canada.)

And these statistics are only averages. That means that 50% of people will dead and 50% will still be alive. These statistics are produced from people dying now. How will they change for future generations? Life expectancy has been steadily rising for quite some time. The statistics I quoted are the latest available and they are dated 2009.

So have you thought about being ready to live a long time?

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