Job Termination
With retirement on the horizon, few are financially preparedBroke boomers?Baby boomers need to stop thinking and worrying about their retirement plans and start planning and acting on them, says Kris Vikmanis. |
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 [ 2007-07-24 ] |
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Vikmanis, head of BMO Financial Group's retirement markets, says boomers are living longer, working longer and in many cases need more money to fund their retirements than any generations of the past.
"Canadians no longer see retirement as a single point in time or a time trigger for when they'll no longer be working," she says. "It's a time of transition."
Vikmanis has been researching boomers' and pre-boomers' attitudes towards retirement for the past year and detailed some of her findings for Sun Media.
Many baby boomers are having challenges balancing the books, with most still carrying debt (73%). Only 28% of boomers say they have savings and investments of $100,000 or more and almost 1-in-5 boomers who have not yet retired (19%), say they have no savings at all.
Two-thirds of boomers are at least somewhat willing to sell their assets to fund retirement, although only a third are intending to use this strategy.
The vast majority of boomers own homes (80%) and 1-in-5 own a second house.
Pre-boomers are overwhelmingly satisfied with their lives (96%)
More than half (56%) say they are very satisfied and another 40% say they are somewhat satisfied.
Retirement for boomers is not the retirement of their parents' generation, says Vikmanis. There aren't as many company pensions now, they don't feel old, and they want to stay engaged and connected through work, as well as supplement their retirement income.
DEBT IS COMMON
"Clearly, the concept of retirement has changed," she says.
Debt, for instance, is common -- 62% of boomers intend to go into retirement carrying debt, which is different from their parents' generation.
With 46% of boomers saying they don't feel they're on track with saving for retirement and another 24% not sure, Vikmanis says, it's not surprising that most boomers fully expect to continue work in one way or another past the age of 65.
"And that's OK if they're healthy and their loved ones are healthy and there are jobs and they have the right skill sets. But that's a lot of ifs," she says.
Her advice?
"Boomers have to understand their resources -- they have to get a picture of what their retirement will look like and figure out what it's going to cost them. Then they have to make that retirement happen.
For more information on just how to do that, go to www.bmonesbittburns.com/retirement yourway/ on the Internet.
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