Retirement Planning: Most Canadians Retire in Summer

Retirement Not Celebrated by Almost Half of Canadians

A recent survey from Fidelity Investments Canada ULC found that summer time is the best time to retire for Canadians. The third annual 2007/2008 Fidelity Canadian Retirement Survey discovered that June, July and August are the months when the highest numbers of Canadians retire. Unfortunately, this year’s survey shows that more retirees are finding retiring is getting harder.

"Fidelity’s research shows that when it comes to the timing of their retirement, the summer months are the tops for Canadians. When you consider the relatively short summer Canada enjoys, it seems that retiring Canadians want to take full advantage of the summer months by not spending them at work," says Peter Drake, vp, economic and retirement research, Fidelity.

While Fidelity’s research shows that more Canadians retired in the summer months, for almost four-in-10 Canadians celebrating their retirement certainly was not their first priority. Thirty-six per cent of retirees stated that they did not celebrate or mark their retirement with anything special. This is partially explained by the 40% of retirees that report they have continued to work after retiring. Luckily, the majority of retirees did celebrate with company parties (31%), parties thrown by family or friends (18%), taking a special trip or vacation (14%) or starting a new hobby (12%). One-in-seven retirees marked their retirement by meeting with their financial advisor.

More about Canadians in Their Retirement

1. According to a recently released Statistics Canada study, almost half of Canadian households spend more than their pretax income in a given year. That's up from 39 per cent in the early 1980s. From 1982 to 2001, the study found, per capita debt doubled, because of sharp increases in both mortgages and consumer debt.

2. 67 percent of Canadians say money is their most frequent worry.

3. Only 40 percent of Canadians know how many millions are in a billion.

4. Still worse, only 25 percent of Canadians know the difference between the National debt and National deficit.

5. According to Desjardins Financial security's latest retirement study, many Canadians are not prepared for the challenges retirement can bring. They are failing to consider a variety of factors and risks that can have an impact on the yield and longevity of their savings, such as inflation, rising life expectancies and healthcare costs. Nearly 60% of those surveyed are not concerned about having a large enough nest egg to sustain their standard of living in retirement. More than 80% have not eliminated their consumer debt in retirement and even more are not concerned about paying off their mortgages (88%). And more than half are not worried that inflation will erode their savings.

The Best Retirement Book in the World

Top 10 Reasons to Buy and Read How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free

1. You are ready to claim your freedom from corporate life.

2. You want to follow your retirement dreams instead of someone else's.

3. As a spiritually and highly evolved human being you know that how to enjoy life to its fullest is much more important for creating an active, satisfying, and happy retirement than how much money you have saved.

4. Many retirement columnists and retirement seminar presenters have ranted and raved about this book. For instance, retirement columnist Nancy Paradis of the St. Petersburg Times in Florida advises, "Get this book if you look forward to a retirement with 'zing.' "

5. With it's great title and the inspirational subtile, this book makes the perfect gift for the soon-to-be retired friend or for the person retiring at the office.

6. You agree that "Retirement is the beginning of life, not the end."

7. You have put money in proper perspective so that you don't need a million dollars to retire.

8. You want to generate great purpose in your entire retirement life with meaningful, creative pursuits.

9. You like finding extremely useful information about retirement such as The Get-a-Life Tree that you won't find in any other book, but which is acclaimed by people who have read How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free.

10. Above all, you want to make your retirement years the best years of your life.

Over 95,000 Copies Sold
Published in 7 Foreign Languages

Purchase How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free on Amazon.com before you submit your retirement letter with this direct link:

How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free on Amazon.com

Retirement Resources by Ernie Zelinski on His Websites, Blogs, and Article Websites

• Jobs During Retirement at The Real Success Resource Center


• Free Retirement Speech on The Retirement Speeches Café

Retirement Quotes about Working at Fun Retirement Jobs When You Retire

Working in Retirement Years

According to Statistics Canada, more than 300,000 Canadians 65 or older worked
in 2001

• 57% were 65-69
• 26% were 70-74
• 17% were 75 or older

If you are going to work in your retirement years, why not work at a Fun Retirement Job ?

Another E-Mail about The Joy of Not Working

I received this e-mail from Zain Fazal:

Dear Mr. Zelinski,

I had just completed reading your book The Joy of Not Working and I must say, I am very relieved to know they're people out there who think like you do. The work ethic is modern day North America has always bothered me. I have seen what workaholics has done to family, friends I came to the conclusion a long time ago that this can't be as good as it gets there has to be more to life then work.

Every job I had has made me miserable (factory worker, donut fryer, warehouse worker, etc.) once I found out I didn't like a job. I quit right away. Because of this I face ridicule from my family and friends who believe they are some sort of martyrs by working 10-12 hours a day or working on weekends it drives me crazy when people think like this.

After reading The Joy of Not Working I am happy that I'm not the only one who thinks way! Your book is insightful, clever and witty, I. am going to be graduating from college with a diploma in Tourism and travel from Mohawk College. However in between looking for a job, I plan to do a bit of creative loafing of my own. I plan to learn to drive; learn to swim, among other things. Thank you for letting me know it's OK to not work hard and it's OK not to conform.

(I especially love the chapter regarding GNP) I only wish you had included the reply to the one negative letter that was sent to you about The Joy of Not Working .

Best regards,

Zain Fazal
Kitchener, Ontario

Purchase The Joy of Not Working on Amazon.com with this direct link:

The Joy of Not Working on Amazon.com

Associated Links to The Retirement Quotes Cafe

teacher retirement jokes at The Retirement Jokes Café

Free Retirement Speech on the The Retirement Speeches Café

retirement poem for school principal at The Retirement Poems Café

sample retirement letter at The Retirement Letters Café

retirement gifts at The Retirement Gifts Café

Aging and Retirement Quotes

Speeches about Retirement and The Joy of Not Working

Photo of Istanbul



This started with an e-mail I received in April:

Good morning,

My client KalDer has asked about availability and fee for Ernie Zelinski to participate at their 17th Annual Congress in Istanbul, 24th - 26th November 2008.

KalDer is the Turkish National Quality Organization.

Their annual congress brings together approximately 2,500 persons from the Turkish business community, academics, students and journalists.

I would be pleased to provide you with additional information and look forward to hearing from you.

Speakers Bureau International

As I pondered whether I wanted to consider going to Istanbul and what I should charge (initially I was thinking of $1,500 plus all expenses including busines class travel) I got a call from the Speakers Bureau.

Asked what I would charge, I said $2,500 for a one-hour speech, business class travel from Edmonton to Istanbul, and all associated expenses including meals. I was told that I would be paid $3,000 plus all expenses.

I still didn't know if I wanted to go but when my friend Michael Attwood and his wife Willy who live in Vancouver said they would likely fly to Istanbul and be there the 3 days that I would be there, I decided to give this a little more consideration.

After it was confirmed that I could be put up at the Ritz-Carlton in Istanbul for three nights in a suite, I decided to take this gig seriously even posting as an important speaking event on Morgan James Publishing. and an important event at Ernie Zelinski's Book Tour.

No doubt the interest in having me make this one-hour speech came about because of my book The Joy of Not Working: A Book for the Retired, Unemployed, and Overworked which has been published in 17 languages including Turkish.

The cover of the Turkish edition is shown below:

I thought about a number of topics that I could address:

• Retirement Sayings about The Joy of Not Working Nine to Five
• Retirement Planning Made Easy Using Retirement Quotes
• Profiting from Creativity at Your Retirement Jobs
• Retire Happy in 1000 Ways
• Retirement Speeches and Retirement Letter Samples
• Career Success for People Too Smart to Work in Corporations
• Creative Downloadable Free E-books for Innovative Marketing

I sent an e-mail to the woman of the speakers bureau and she replied with this:

"Here is their translation into English of the text for the event brochure:"

The Joy of (not) Working

Questioning our point of view about work life as an individual and organization, Zelinski says that when working meets with love, it pleases and he reveals that expectations like materiality and career contributes lowly to individual and organization.

When listening to Ten Speed Press Author Ernie Zelinski, you will find the opportunity to revaluate your outlook for work life and consider your organization's human resources policies and approaches differently. Working tires, what about not working?

Zelinski introduces the features of the every activity of pleasure and improving the life quality made for working or not working. He tells to workaholics whose lives consist of only their jobs an neglects their family, friends and above all themselves that work but turn your job into pleasure and joy and by working efficiently become happy and he tells about how to make their life cheerfully despite everything to his retired readers.

Where should we put work life in our lives?

For this, first by completing our own adventures we should bring our life purposes to code which is open for change. For positioning money which is ranked one in our lives, everyone should ask this question to themselves: If we think that happiness can be bought by working too much or earning too much money, why don't we try to sell some part of our own happiness?

This is one of the most critical questions and an NLP anchor that shows us by balancing working or not working how can it be the key for pleasant and calm life. If you are thinking about how to work efficiently and pleasantly, what can be done for making physical and mental health better, how to live for physical health and inner calmness pay attention to Zelinski.

Wow! This is confusing. These people want me to talk about something I don't know anything about.

So what am I going to talk about?

How Much Money Do You Need for Retirement?

You May Not Need as Much Retirement Income as the Experts Claim

Contrary to the advice of those financial advisers who recommended you need 70-80 per cent of your pre-retirement income to retire comfortably, most retired people get by on a lot less.

Surprisingly, research by Statistics Canada found that people whose pre-retirement income was $70,000 or greater tended to retire on about 45 per cent of that – or around $31,500. Those who earned around the average national wage – between $40,000 and $50,000 – retired on 59 per cent of their pre-retirement income.

Most interestingly, only one in six people with a pre-retirement income of $40,000 or more had a replacement ratio of 75 per cent or more.

Working in Retirement Jobs in Your Retirement Years

According to Statistics about Retirement generated by Statistics Canada, more than 300,000 Canadians 65 or older worked in 2001:

• 57% were 65-69
• 26% were 70-74
• 17% were 75 or older

Even The U.S. State Dept Likes The Joy of Not Working

Importance of Money Quotes at the The Retirement Quotes Cafe

Due to Money Baby Boomers Likely to Face a Bleak Retirement - If Any Retirement at All!

According to MotleyFool.com, more than 39 percent of individuals who are presently in or near retirement have saved less than $25,000 for their golden years. Apparently this is the lowest American savings rate since the Great Depression.

Actually it's worse than that. Check out the numbers from the RCS. They reflect the total savings and investments (not including the value of the primary residence) of today's workers, by age group:

Retirement Savings

-------Less than $25K - $25K-$49.9K - $50K-$99.9K - $100K-$249.9K - - 250K +

All Ages - - - 53% - - - - - - - 12% - - - - - - - 12% - - - - - - - 11% - - - - - - 12%
25-34 - - - - - -73% - - - - - - - 11% - - - - - - - 7% - - - - - - - - - 4% - - - - - - - 5%
35-44 - - - - -49%- - - - - - - 14% - - - - - - - 16%- - - - - - - - - 12% - - - - -- - 9%
45-54 - - - - 44%- - - - - - - 14% - - - - - - - 12% - - - - - - - - - 15% - - - - - - 16%
- 55+ - - - - -42% - - - - - - - 8% - - - - - - - - 2% - - - - - - - - 12% - - - - - - - 26%

Source: Retirement Confidence Survey, April 2006.

Note that according to the above figures, half of the people 55 and over have saved less than $50,000 for retirement.


Ernie Zelinski's Speech at the Ritz-Carlton in Istanbul

Retirement Dinner Speeches on The Retirement Speeches Café