Mulcair Vows Push To Expand CPP/QPP Within 6 Months + MORE Sep 3rd

If you live like a typical Canadian then you might not have to save as much as you think for retirement.
Before determining how much Canadians need to save, it’s important to get a handle on how much they spend. A visit to Statistics Canada reveals that the average Canadian household spent $79,012 in 2013. (The most recent annual data available.) Of that amount $58,592 was devoted to consumption and $13,891 went to income taxes. The rest was spent on insurance, pensions, gifts, charity, and alimony.
In a spot of good news, most retirees can happily live on much less than they did when they were working. After all, most don’t pay nearly as much in tax and, amongst other things, they generally spend less than the average ($12,041 per year) on transportation.
Looking at different situations, the average one-person household spent $44,709 in 2013 with $34,135 devoted to consumption and $6,700 to income taxes.
On the other hand, couples with children spent an average of $112,057, consumed $81,636 worth of goods and services, and paid $21,483 in income taxes in 2013…

A new poll suggests adult children are draining their parents’ retirement nest eggs.

TORONTO — A New Democrat government would work with the provinces to bolster Canadians’ retirement security rather than charting a course alone and saddling future generations with massive debt, Tom Mulcair said Thursday.

The NDP leader promised that if he’s elected, he would convene a first ministers meeting within six months to come up with a proposal and timetable for expanding the Canada and Quebec pension plans. Business and labour leaders would be consulted, he said.

With only about one-third of Canadians having access to workplace pensions, New Democrats say the CPP and Quebec plan need to be bolstered to top up seniors’ retirement savings.

“Provinces like Ontario and P.E.I. have already put proposals on the table — we’re going to take those ideas seriously,” Mulcair said at a campaign stop.

“I’m going to ensure that an NDP government respects provincial solutions that are already in place.”

Mulcair said he would not prejudge the results of the consultations, saying that would be Conservative Leader Stephen Harper’s approach, not his…

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TORONTO – A new poll suggests adult children are draining their parents’ retirement nest eggs.
The CIBC survey has found that two-thirds of Canadian parents polled say they’re feeling the financial impact of supporting their adult children.
Almost half of them said supporting their adult kids is hampering their ability to save for themselves, while 20 per cent say it has actually delayed their retirement.
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One in four parents said they spend more than $500 a month to cover their adult kids’ rent, groceries and other bills.
The top two expenses are groceries and other household expenses and cellphone bills.
The survey of 1,054 randomly selected Canadian parents was conducted two weeks ago. It’s considered accurate within plus or minus three percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
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Q: I recently changed jobs and got a letter from the pension plan of my previous employer. The letter gave me several options regarding the pension amounts that I had accumulated.
One option was to do a non-locked in transfer of the pension amount to my personal RRSP. The transfer would be done directly from the pension to my brokerage account.
Before taking this option, I wanted to confirm that this would not cause any tax or RRSP over contribution issues for me. Currently I have no RRSP contribution room, however I understand that this type of transfer, directly from the pension to my RRSP would not count towards my contribution limit?
—Ray
A: Whether you are changing jobs or retiring, when you leave a pension plan, you have a decision to make. The pile of paperwork that comes in the mail tends to be a bit intimidating and depending upon whether or not you were in a defined benefit (DB) pension or a defined contribution (DC) pension, you might have a few choices to make…