Personal Finance Buzz

Retirement is supposed to be the best years of your life. Some call it the golden years. It will only be golden if you plan for independent retirement.

Thanks to low interest rates, a tumultuous stock market and a recession, many people may have reached retirement age without the proper savings or financial security. They may worry that they will never be able to retire. If this sounds like your situation, there are things you can do to improve your finances.

Your goals and individual needs will be a big part of the kind of investment portfolio you have to get you through your retirement years. Here are some steps to take in order to create your retirement investment plan

Canada Pension Plan (CPP) is one of the pillars of retirement income benefits for Canadians. For the past 20 years since I have been in the financial industry, there has always been a perception that CPP may not be there in retirement.

Retirement planning is not about just a single number of how much you need to save. A retirement plan is really a projection of your income and expenses into the future.

A retirement plan is necessary to help prevent the retirement anxiety that affects many of us. Especially when so many messages out there are suggesting we are all doomed to fail because we are not saving enough money.

As an employee of a company you only have access to the one retirement plan that is provided to you. If you’re self-employed or a small business owner you have more retirement plan options than just a traditional IRA or Roth IRA. The plan that best fits you will depend on your business plan, how much you want to contribute, how many employees you have or expect to have, and if you get income from a regular job.

I must admit I don’t think much about Social Security as a retirement option these days. How could I when most financial advisors and experts tell you to plan around it and don’t depend on it because it won’t be there by the time you retire (unless you’re close to retirement). Personally, I focus on contributing to my company’s 401(k), my Roth IRA and traditional IRA as the best sources of retirment income. The Dallas Morning News recently summed up the Social Security situation quite well.