No life plan

My investment guy gave me heck today for having no life plan. He means no financial plan. He's right. We're at a loss.

I do not believe in RRSPs. Can't say why, just don't. I think it's the play now, pay later design of them. I have always been a pay-upfront sort of person. Tax free savings accounts appeal to me much more. Made with after tax dollars. Paid first, might play later.

Hub and I recently made, and backed out of, a deal on an 'investment' house. Built in the 1920s, you can be sure that not a single thing in it is up to code. Including the shavings used as insulation. Our offer was subject to having it inspected by an inspector of our choice, and finding no repairs in excess of $5000.

Our inspector, a local reno builder man, walked through and came out with his jaw hanging open. His estimate, to get it up to code, was $100,000. THe house, even with $100,000 would NEVER be worth what it cost us. Everything needed to be torn out and replaced. Not to mention that 3 additions, none of them on solid foundation, did not meet code and had raw earth beneath. This is considered a radon gas no-no! Not even a neatly excavated raw earth basement, no, just addition laid over whatever ghastly earth form was beneath them. Not even a flat, neat area to poly off. One would have to start chipping and removing earth in 5 gallon pails to create an area to tarp off. This of course would create a collapse hazard of the rickety and improperly built additions sitting over this mess of raw dirt. His advice: RUN, don't walk away from this nightmare.

Got a call from realtor today saying the price had come down even more and I'd be a fool to miss this. That with a little paint and lino, I could make an easy $100,000.

Well, maybe someone could. Maybe someone who wouldn't feel bad selling it with potential radon gas and lead in the pipes and wiring that was going to start a fire. BUt there are some things Hub and I will not do for money. Putting someone else into a home that we ourselves would not live in is one of them. I would love to have $100,000 in the bank. BUt I don't want to feel like a slimeball to do it. And thus, we are likley to retire poor.

I don't know how many Canadians have the 4.5 million in the bank that we're supposed to in order to retire. Hub could have gone off into the north to work, but didn't. HE stayed here, for no benefits, no pension and vastly lower income. This was a choice. I do not believe that money should be the deciding factor in most life decisions, although for many people, it is. We know that we will pay for the life we have lived, we HAVE paid for it! But is it possible to retire without millions in the bank, and survive anyway?

I would like to hear from those here who managed to quit the 9-5 grind without the 'life planning' that my investment guy urges us to do. Or the slum lord rental situation that my realtor is urging me to do. I keep thinking I would sleep better at night with a bundle of cash in the bank. But HOW it gets there matters hugely to me. Selling unfit houses to unsuspecting people does not sit well with my life plan. Oops, I have no life plan! Wisdom, anyone? (I'm pretty sure I posted about this before, but it is on my mind again anyway)

Uno, congratulations on having a conscience! When money is our only motivator, bad decisions often come into play.
My hubby chose to stay here to, and we do a job we feel good about. It pays the bills, mostly...
We are working on the plan to make more money, but it will be a win-win for us and any others who are involved.
In the end, we have to sleep at night.

I agree with you UNO, I wouldn't be able to sleep at night knowing I put someone in that situation for money either. We have been focusing on the near future and not putting money aside for retirement, just working on raising our boys and building our farm up.

I guess a lot of it comes down to what kind of retirement would make us happy?
My hubby could work away from home too.. But he has worked away from home and it was terrible. I hated it as much as he did, and I'm just as happy living a more simple life, doing what we can here with not a whole lot of money. Right now it's hard to put money away.. The grocery bill alone is insane with how fast these guys are growing.

We are not really believers in RRSP's either. So we also need to do more thinking when it comes to the future.

I'm know there are better, more qualified people here who will leave you good advice. For what it's worth, cause I'm in that mood that no one is interested in me giving my two cent is worth but I just love to prattle anyway, here I go.

I'm in the same boat in many respects. THrough hub's work, we got a group RRSP and contributed for years. THey said there would be someone to talk to to help guide us through the planning for retirement whenever we needed advice. But how was I to know what advice to ask for? I found most of it complicated to understand. Hub's was worse off than me. I love him, but the dear tunes out. Unless there is an explanation with pictures so he can visualize whatever is being said. I tried reading books on money and investing. I was told to get The Wealthy Barber book cause that will reveal all. Got the one for Canadians. Read it so many times yet I am still not the wiser for it. I simply do not understand it. To quote Barbie "Math is hard!" Don't care if it sounds sexist, but this girl's brain really finds all the math for investing for the future hard!

Like many, we have a credit card debt. First from being plain stupid. Then it was trying to help my folks out when they hit a bump in the road. Then when we moved to this home we have now. After we started to pay our debt down, I had my dad making "improvements" to said home. Because we all agreed that any renos agreed on would be split 50-50. However, dad's versions of this was "Renos done that he wanted even when we didn't." I would get hit with "Daughter, it's an investment called Equality! You can't go wrong cause if we decide to sell, it will mean more money!" I didn't know better. I also didn't want to be the evil daughter [Lord I should have!] Sadly, Dad only listens to his own advice so most of the renos he did pretty much either went to rot or fell apart or had to be torn apart and done over.

Up to a few years ago, we were still not sure of what our future was going to be. We were jacked up past our eyeballs in debt. The RRSPs were still a mystery for me and not really doing as well as I thought they should be doing. My Dad insisted he wanted off the mortgage. He believed he would get more in his pensions if he did [long story.] Of course, he didn't but as I said, he only listens to his own advice. So hubs and I became sole owners of our home. As we were close to the end of our mortgage, we pulled all our money out of our RRSPs and paid off the house. Then my hub's dad passed away. When he did, the family home in downtown Toronto went up on the market. My hubs got a nice amount from the will that we put against clearing off a huge chunk of our debt.

Our future is our home. It's value is now 3 times what we paid for it. I've been able to fix & repair most of the reno work my dad tried to do. We still have a debt but it is going down. We are wiser and more careful with the money.

My folks had zip when they retired. Dad never believed in planning or saving despite my mom trying to put some aside. With all of us living together in their final days, I saw what having nothing planned was like for them. Sadly, my dad was from that generation that believed the federal government was his golden ticket. My folks' pensions were bare minimum. I dread the thought what would have happened to my mom if we were not living together. I don't want to end up there. So this house and what we do have in our TFSAs are IMPORTANT to us.

Anyway, that's me. Hopefully others will leave their advice here. I'm hoping to learn and get some advice too.

Toybarons, Barbie is right. Math is hard!

I have to say my heart goes out to Izzy and anyone raising boys. I never knew how much a young male could consume until HD moved her boyfriend in here. Holy crackers! He was like the black hole of Calcutta. Food just evaporated in his presence! My grocery bill doubled!

I would also like to throw out a glimmer of hope to people raising families :there is hope. The time of your life that you have kids at home, faces to feed, mortgage payments to make and critters who need the vet, it feels like you will never see daylight financially. But hang on. Once kids get an after school job and buy themselves a beater to rive around and start paying for their own gas and insurance, and you aren't the taxi anymore, you will fill your car less. They will be home less often and eat at your table less, and your grocery bill will reflect this. There comes that brief moment when income is finally greater than expenses. Mind you, if you are financing university educations, forget it, you're toast. (we financed a mobile home purchase which we like to think of as pretty decent life education!)


But still, Hub would like to retire now. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN! I don't know. I feel like there is something I should be doing, and I'm not. SOme smart move I should make that I'm not making. It's great to have ethics and morals and I think I have those, but they are not free. It really burns me when I see that often, sadly, the nice guys DO finish last.

Uno, I have that feeling also.

Know how when you were a kid you knew of another kid who seem to know what they were going to be? They knew exactly what they wanted to be, or do with their life. They had that drive. They knew with hard work that they would succeed.

I was not that kid. I just never seemed to know what I wanted my life to be. I didn't want a career. I didn't want to be CEO. Didn't want fame. Didn't want piles of money. I pretty much got the life I wanted. I just wish I could just do something to help bring in a few dollars so we can be a bit more comfortable and secure. Only I have such a phobia of leaving my world for the one outside my world.

I just can't connect the dots   

Most people want a life plan that doesn't alter in anyway the life style that they have grown accustomed to ! And hey , if you're willing to work for it for most of your life or gamble on stocks or what ever to get there then more power to you ! I guess I'm one of those who will work towards getting that small plot of land , build a sustainable log cabin that when the time comes to sell off the house and all the things I no longer have a use for and live in my cabin debt free ? Most people can't bank nearly enough according to national statistics ! what with the cost of living just going up and wages not reflecting it ! The other choice is when you're near retirement is to sell everything ,move to a country that gives a huge dividend exchange to our currency and live out your days in a rather wealthy state  ? Regardless , most will still  live out there days as have generations before us and generations to come

We do save. Like others have said, we've seen myThey are forced to make do with the government pension and I don't think that's much. If it's there when I'm ready for it, great, but I don't trust that it will be. Likewise, we've seen so many pension plans go belly up that I don't trust that either.

I know 2 guys who worked for decades for a forestry company. When they retired, one (my relative) took a lump sum and put it in the bank. He was all right. The other took the pension payments. When their plan went under because of the company's mismanagement, his payments fell and he had to go back to work.