{"id":523429,"date":"2026-03-08T23:39:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T23:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/523429\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T23:39:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T23:39:10","slug":"is-the-1-7-million-retirement-savings-target-a-meaningless-number","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/523429\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the $1.7-million retirement savings target a \u2018meaningless\u2019 number?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Visual Generation\/iStockPhoto \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

A recent survey<\/a> from BMO found that Canadians think they need $1.7-million, on average, to retire<\/a> comfortably. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a striking number. It\u2019s also, in many ways, a questionable one. But that was likely the point.<\/p>\n

Is that amount for one person or a couple? Does it assume retirement right now or at \u201cretirement age,\u201d whenever that might be? Did respondents factor in private pensions? CPP? OAS? How did the results account for life-long renters versus households with paid off mortgages?<\/p>\n

If a 25-year-old today estimated that they needed $1.7-million to retire at age 65 but failed to adjust for inflation, then assuming an average 2.5-per-cent rate of inflation that number would have to be close to $4.5-million instead. <\/p>\n

But what does \u201cretire comfortably\u201d even mean?<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s a meaningless number,\u201d says Moira Rose V\u00e1n\u011b, a lawyer and advice-only financial planner at Moira Rose Financials in Edmonton. (Yes, she is destined to forever explain that is in fact her real name.) <\/p>\n

\u201cA retirement built around volunteering at the library and the community garden calls for an entirely different income stream than one spent exploring European countries six months of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reports show more than half of working Canadians don\u2019t have a retirement plan. Online tools can help<\/a><\/p>\n

That contrast captures the problem with headline survey numbers when it comes to our money. Some households have $1,000 leases on two separate vehicles while others get the job done with one paid-off older model. The average lease cost per household doesn\u2019t begin to tell the whole story for either family. <\/p>\n

In practice, financial planners approach retirement planning very differently. Instead of thinking about a target nest egg balance at retirement, they typically begin with something much more concrete: Spending.<\/p>\n

I posted about the retirement survey numbers on my Instagram channel and received some messages from many people who think they\u2019ll need far more than the survey average to retire comfortably, but I also received messages from people who are quickly approaching retirement with little anxiety and with less than $200,000 in retirement funds. They have paid off mortgages, have relatively low spending, and have factored in CPP and OAS. <\/p>\n

Ms. V\u00e1n\u011b says she usually starts by examining a client\u2019s current spending patterns and modelling how far their current investment portfolio and contribution rates will take them as a starting point. The analysis includes estimating other sources of income, such as CPP and OAS. <\/p>\n

Then she can calculate different scenarios based on adjusting factors such as alternative retirement dates and future spending patterns. She emphasized that the planning is less about fixating on a target account balance at a future date, and more about what clients can be doing now to set themselves up to fund the life they want. <\/p>\n

\u201cYour money also doesn\u2019t stop growing at 65,\u201d said V\u00e1n\u011b. \u201cThe idea is that your investments should also be carrying you through 20 or more years of retirement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Funding retirement comes down to three words: forecast, plan and adapt<\/a><\/p>\n

Part of proper financial and investment planning would contemplate how to compartmentalize your retirement funding sources to balance the realities of market volatility. This might include apportioning some funds into a shorter-term sleeve that is less subject to volatility to provide confidence for cashflow for a five-year window, as an example. The remaining funds could be expected to benefit from the higher potential returns that a longer-time horizon affords.<\/p>\n

Figuring out your retirement numbers requires answering a long list of questions first. Among them:<\/p>\n

When do you plan to retire?How long might you live?Will your home be paid off?How much will you receive from CPP and OAS?Do you have a workplace pension?How much do you want to spend each year? Travel and health spending rarely remain static.How will inflation affect those expenses?What investment returns are realistic over time?Do you have goals around how much you want to leave to others, or are you content to not leave an estate? <\/p>\n

That list isn\u2019t exhaustive, but the common thread is that figuring out what a comfortable retirement for any individual household requires planning. <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople feel more confident on the other side of the planning process and I think it comes down to a perspective shift,\u201d Ms. V\u00e1n\u011b said. <\/p>\n

Instead of thinking about one giant number at a specific point in time that will last the rest of their life as the goal, people may shift to thinking about retirement in a way that reflects the reality they will face: Based on cash flow and modelling out different life events. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen people start seeing it that way, the whole picture comes into focus, and what felt overwhelming or anxiety-provoking becomes something they can actually understand and work toward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Preet Banerjee is the creator of YourMoneyDegree.com<\/a>, a financial literacy program with an AI companion app.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Visual Generation\/iStockPhoto \/ Getty Images A recent survey from BMO found that Canadians…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":523430,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,45,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,133,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,131,132,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":{"0":"post-523429","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-alberta","9":"tag-arts-news","10":"tag-bc","11":"tag-breaking-news","12":"tag-breaking-news-video","13":"tag-british-columbia","14":"tag-business","15":"tag-ca","16":"tag-canada","17":"tag-canada-news","18":"tag-canada-sports","19":"tag-canada-sports-news","20":"tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","21":"tag-canadian-breaking-news","22":"tag-canadian-news","23":"tag-economy","24":"tag-education","25":"tag-environment","26":"tag-federal-government","27":"tag-finance","28":"tag-foreign-news","29":"tag-globe-and-mail","30":"tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","31":"tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","32":"tag-government","33":"tag-life-news","34":"tag-lifestyle","35":"tag-local-news","36":"tag-manitoba","37":"tag-national-news","38":"tag-new-brunswick","39":"tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","40":"tag-northwest-territories","41":"tag-nova-scotia","42":"tag-nunavut","43":"tag-ontario","44":"tag-pei","45":"tag-personal-finance","46":"tag-personalfinance","47":"tag-photos","48":"tag-political-news","49":"tag-political-opinion","50":"tag-politics","51":"tag-politics-news","52":"tag-quebec","53":"tag-sports-news","54":"tag-technology","55":"tag-travel","56":"tag-trudeau","57":"tag-us-news","58":"tag-world-news","59":"tag-yukon"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/523430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}