I’m Planning My Retirement

The hard part is no longer saving. It is knowing it will last.

You have spent decades building this. Now the question is quieter, and harder: will it actually last? Most people we meet do not arrive worried about a rate of return. They arrive wondering whether they can stop working without watching the balance every month for the rest of their lives.

That worry is common and rational. In one national survey, 61% of Canadians said they are afraid of running out of money in retirement (CPP Investments, 2024). What separated those who were not afraid was rarely how much they had saved. It was whether they had a real plan.

Retirement is the question. It is rarely the whole answer.

Most people come to us thinking retirement is a savings problem, a single number to hit. It almost never is. Underneath it lie decisions that quietly determine whether the number holds:

How your money is invested, so it keeps working without exposing you to a shock you cannot recover from. The order in which you draw from accounts, because the difference between drawing from an RRSP, a TFSA, or a corporation first can change what you keep for years. How taxes follow you into retirement, including the clawbacks that catch people who never saw them coming. And what happens to whatever is left, for the people you love.

If you have just sold a business or had a liquidity event, the question changes again, because suddenly the plan is about a large sum landing all at once, not a salary winding down.

Turning the worry into a plan

The point of retirement planning is not a projection. It is confidence. Depending on where your real questions sit, the next step might be Retirement Planning, or the way it connects to Investment Management, Tax Planning, or Estate Planning. If a business sale is part of the picture, Business Wealth Strategy is where that thread runs.

The hardest part of retirement is not the math. It is trusting that you can let go of the paycheque.

You do not need to know which of these you need. That is what the first conversation is for. We listen, look at the whole picture, and tell you honestly where the real work is.