Government pension plans, including the CPP/QPP and the Old Age Security Program, will only provide around 30%-40% of what you will need to retire. Furthermore, with the massive baby boomer population poised on the brink of retirement, the taxes needed to fund the OAS program will be rising and eventually this program may be reduced or possibly even phased out altogether. Life expectancies are rising and this will provide an added burden to taxpayers as they will be funding the retirement of the baby boomers for an even longer period than expected.

Employer pension plans are becoming quite rare. This is because to qualify for a pension plan you are usually required to have a certain number of years of service and these days companies aren't providing long term employment like they did for previous generations.

Another factor to consider is that we are all living longer and this increases the amount of savings we will need to retire comfortably. All of these factors contribute to the increased need for Canadians to begin providing for their own retirement and ideally become completely self sufficient upon retirement. This is not a cause for concern. Instead, it raises the need for you to become more knowledgeable about retirement planning and to develop a retirement plan of your own. This website, as well the myriad of financial planners that you can reach through this site, will greatly assist you in doing so. Here are three simple tips that will help provide for your own retirement, if they are strictly adhered to:

Begin planning today
Investing now as opposed to later will make your investments worth more in the future . Notice the difference between a dollar invested for just a few years versus a dollar invested many more years.

Use your RRSP as your prime retirement income source
Try to maximize your contribution limit and focus on stock investments if your retirement is still a long time away.

Make regular deposits
Many financial institutions that offer RRSP's will allow you to make small deposits to your RRSP's on a regular basis (ie. every paycheque). This will avoid the need to search for money or borrow money in order to contribute to your RRSP at the contribution deadline.

The Five Steps to a Successful Retirement Plan

There are five basic steps to creating a successful retirement plan:

• Determine your retirement goals
• Determine your current financial position
• Determine a retirement plan to meet your retirement goals and begin saving
• Determine how you want to receive your retirement income
• Develop an estate plan

Use our Retirement Planner Calculator to help you get started with your retirement planning.