Canadian Capitalist

Jon Chevreau and Rob Carrick have weighed in on the latest Fidelity study that finds that “Canadians are on track to replace only 50% of their pre-retirement income once they retire”. Fidelity continues to insist that this is well short of the “recommended 80% level” despite the shaky assumptions in their original research and another [...]

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While a fully paid-off home is half a step toward retirement, it is equally important to have an investment portfolio consisting of various asset classes to provide income when we have stopped working. Perhaps due to a long string of strong gains in housing prices, many people seem to believe that their home is an [...]

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I received a copy of the research report by the Canadian Institute of Actuaries (thanks to Riscario Insider for the link) that estimated how much Canadians in their early to mid-40s need to save for retirement. They estimate this number by assuming that a senior one-person household would spend the same average $24,909 it did [...]

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I don’t find it all that surprising that a recent study found that a majority of Canadians in their early to mid-40s are not saving enough for their retirement. While we have debated many times in the past how much of a nest egg is needed in retirement and vigorously disagreed when the financial industry [...]

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I would like to express many thanks to reader George for pointing out an excellent research article by Malcolm Hamilton. The report, titled The Financial Circumstances of Elderly Canadians and the Implications for the Design of Canada’s Retirement System, delves into data from StatsCan’s Survey of Household spending and compares income and spending patterns of [...]

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The StatsCan data referenced in Fidelity’s study, which shows that retiring Canadians would need to replace 75% to 85% of their pre-retirement incomes, is available online. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find support for the assumption that consumption levels remain the same in retirement as in working years.
The StatsCan data breaks down households into three categories based [...]

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On request, Fidelity Canada graciously sent me a copy of their research article (unfortunately, not available online), which concludes that Canadians should be aiming to replace 75% to 85% of their pre-retirement incomes, not 60% to 70% as conventional retirement planning suggests.
Based on StatsCan data, the research assumes that retirees will be spending the same [...]

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