@Euphonious_Polemic I’m sure you’re right on the dot. I just didn’t remember all the termninology, etc.
I’m just planning my own retirement… Trying to get all the details down!
Generally we have a better social safety net in Canada. Nice not having to worry about all the medical stuff like much of this thread is concerned with.
Pretty much why I’m not going to retire ASAP.
I’ll do my job, but will keep my head down. TPTB know to not get me wrapped up in any big projects. My last big project has lasted for 20 years. I’m trying to get that replaced. That, is my job.
Quite true - but the drop in costs is not automatic, and requires a lot of action to make it happen.
In theory, we could move to a condo, and pay cash (or mostly cash) with the equity in this house, but it would take months of decluttering and repairs to get the place on the market - something one of us might not have the ability or motivation to do.
I would actually like us to downsize at some point, to that condo, but partly spurred by this thread, I looked at costs and our housing cost is actually quite reasonable. The sort of condo I’d like would cost about what we paid for this house 21 years ago.
Yeah, it’s a big issue in the US. If you retire before Medicare eligibility (age 65), then you are stuck with finding interim insurance. A friend who retired last fall (at age 65) had budgeted for a year of COBRA (continuation of benefits after leaving a job; you pay the full cost plus a fee). Anyone younger would have to find coverage on the marketplace (Obamacare), or before that, pay full freight on the open market - which can be prohibitively expensive.
In Canada, are benefits as a retiree any different from those as a working person? e.g. I know dental / drug coverage is not automatically covered under the provincial plans, but many employers offer such coverage as part of their benefits package.
I will lose my employer covered extended medical/dental.
There is a new federal dental plan in the works, (CDCP) that will eventually cover everyone in Canada for basic dental. But so far the implementation has been problematic - they did not really work with the dentists through their provincial associations, so many of them are explicitly saying they will not take patients on this plan. Bugs need to be worked out.
I’ll get extended medical (prescriptions, massage, chiro, other associated things that are not covered under the Medical Services Plan (MSP), as well as dental (that my dentist will accept). This extended plan will cost me and spouse about $350\month, which I’ve budgeted for.
Edit: This would have been the same case if I’d retired at pretty much any age… no real difference.
Where’s your preferred source for these data?
My dad (age 80 retired widower) still lives in the 4 bedroom suburban house where I grew up. It’s more house than he really needs obviously, but he has a lot of friends in town and it’s nice for when my brother an I both bring our families to visit.
That’s the justification my parents used to remain in a house that was too large for them to maintain or clean (and they couldn’t afford or weren’t willing to pay for professional help). Owning a nice condo would be about the same price (accounting for condo fees) and Dad was obsessed with owning land, couldn’t make fair comparisons (the nice condos were way, way, better than their never renovated 1960s home, he completely ignored the cost of maintaining their house, etc).
He was very, very clear eyed in analyzing the finances of his employers and the non-profits for who he was a board member. But he was very, very good at doing very, very bad math to justify staying in the house. Because owning a big house meant he was a Big Man.
The psychological aspects of retirement choices are too easy to ignore.
It’s absolutely due to location. Where I live, that might get you a decent one-bedroom apartment in a non-fancy neighborhood. Nothing else.
I don’t think you can find even a non-decent one bedroom apartment within 20 miles of where I am (suburban Boston) for $1200-$1400. Heck I can’t even share a 2 BR apartment in an area within a mile of public transit for $1200 per person.
Yikes I’ve driven a truck for 48 years and after raising a family and finally owning a home payments for college for 2 children and all the expenses that came along the way I’ve accumulated 10% of a million towards retirement! So SS and small pensions my wife and I should be ok providing the GOP don’t screw up Social Security! A million dollars in the bank for a working couple is not likely in my opinion….God bless you if you can make, but it is not a norm.
My parents are also in the same house in which I grew up, and have been there for approximately 55 years, with the same landline number. My father needs a wheelchair for the past few years so it’s fortunate that it’s a one-story ranch with only one very small step from the family room/garage level to the rest of the house.
Lots of memories there, including for me of my brother bringing his children over to visit their uncle (me) and grandparents. My mother asks if I want to inherit the house but I really don’t, though my brother might.
Not @chela but I perceive the World Bank as reliable.
Sub Saharan Africa is at 4.6 birth rate. North America and Europe comparatively at 1.6 and 1.7.
Though not necessarily increasing, just staying very high.
I suppose it was incorrect to say increasing birth rates. rather birth rates in Africa are declining at a much slower rate than the rest of the world.
From the article
- As most of the world contends with the serious challenges to the economic growth of a shrinking workforce and how to care for and pay for aging populations, many of the most resource-limited countries in sub-Saharan Africa will be grappling with how to support the youngest, fastest-growing population on the planet in some of the most politically and economically unstable, heat-stressed, and health system-strained places on earth.”*
Looks like they’re declining faster in Africa.
Neither increasing nor staying.
Macrotrends? The premier research platform for long term investors?
Not saying their data from some branch of the UN is off but it does seem short on transparency and analysis imo ymmv.
I’d say maintaining a fertility rate 2.7 times as high as Europe’s, twice as high as the world’s, and a birth rate per thousand 1.8 times as high as the world’s, is staying high.
I did misstate in my post: my link was for fertility rates. Birth rates are per thousand and decrease as populations live longer so the denominator increases, even if there is no change in fertility rates.
It is fertility rates that that Lancelet article discusses:
Point being that most of the world is predicted to have a population decrease over time while sub Saharan Africa is going to continue to increase. Even as the impacts of climate change hit them very hard.
And I’d say “Though not necessarily increasing, just staying very high.” is an inaccurate way to describe a 37% drop when the global drop 1980–2021 was 38%.
Summary
My apologies to all for continuing this hijack of a hijack and I promise to cease here unless someone decides this is worth a thread of its own.
@Ruken you are of course selecting a very precise portion of those curves, and I nevertheless grant you that sub Saharan Africa fertility rates are decreasing from extremely high to just very high at similar rates as globally it is going from modestly high to below replacement rates.
In the context of the hijack the point remains that those still very high fertility rates are a major problem for the region and impending below replacement rates are a problem for many other regions.
Another reasonable discussion of that below but really we’ve gotten a bit afield from retirement fund requirements … do you want to create a new thread?
Yes, drop it now. No more on the population growth.
Moderating
I hid the last very large off-topic post.