You Might Not Have 30 Good Years in Retirement

The traditional belief is you have 20-30 years in retirement. 

But that doesn’t mean every one of those years will feel the same.

Retirement transition coach Dan Haylett challenged the traditional idea of retirement on a recent episode of More Than Money. 

His point isn’t that retirement ends after 12 years but rather the healthy and active years might be much shorter than what many people expect.

In his article, Your 12 Good Years, Dan writes that a healthy 60-year-old may only have roughly 12 to 15 years before mobility, energy, and independence begin to decline in a noticeable way. 

Most retirement planning conversations focus on answering longevity questions like:

• How long will you live?

• How long will your money last?

• When will you take out your CPP/OAS?

Even though those are important questions — they’re not the only questions.

And even though you might live into your 80s or 90s, the version of you that wants to take the big trip or chase grandchildren might not be the same at 82 as it was at 65.

That doesn’t mean your later years can’t be meaningful, it just means they’ll be quieter and slower.

And if your retirement plan treats every year the same, you might miss the window where your money can create the most enjoyment.

The Trap of Waiting

For most of your life, you were taught to save.

That discipline helped you build stability, which gave you options.

But once retirement begins, the mindset has to shift, and that’s where the friction comes in.

As Dan explained on More Than Money, many retirees are financially able to spend more than they do, but they hesitate. 

Instead that feeling is replaced with worry and anxiety about future health costs, market changes, and inflation.

That fear is understandable.

After decades of seeing saving as responsible and spending as something to control, it can feel uncomfortable to start using the money you built.

But that is one of the most important emotional transitions in retirement.

Wisdom in retirement is knowing when and how to use your money. 

Spending Less Isn’t Always About Being Frugal

One of the strongest points from Dan’s article is that spending often declines later in retirement not because people suddenly become more careful with money, but because their ability to spend changes and new problems emerge like:

• Traveling becomes harder.

• Long days become more tiring.

• Health issues become more common.

The activities that once sounded exciting may start to feel overwhelming.

In other words, the spending decline often follows the activity decline. 

That is a very different way to think about retirement income.

Many people assume they will spend evenly across retirement. 

But real life often does not work that way.

Your 60s and early 70s may be your most active years where you’re traveling more, visiting family, or renovating the home.

Then later, your spending may naturally slow down, because you slowed down.

That is why a retirement plan should ask “When will I be able to enjoy my money the most?”

The Skill of Spending

On the show, Dan used a phrase that deserves more attention:

The skill of spending with purpose.

That doesn’t mean deciding to spend recklessly and blowing it all away.

It also doesn’t mean being so disciplined all the time.

It means building a plan that gives you confidence to use your money while your health, time, and energy are still on your side.

The Question Retirees Need to Ask

Dan’s article raises a question that many retirees avoid:

What are you actually saving for?

Are you saving because:

• your plan says you need to?

• there’s a specific future need?

• you want to leave a larger legacy?

  
  

Or are you saving because saving is what you’ve always done?

That question can be uncomfortable, but it is important.

Because a strong retirement plan should help you understand what you can spend, when you can spend it, and what trade-offs may come with those decisions.

Retirement Is Not One Long Phase

The idea of a 30-year retirement can be misleading because it makes retirement sound like one continuous stage.

But retirement usually has three phases.

There are the early years, when you may have more energy, mobility, and ambition.

There are the middle years, when life may become a little slower and more routine.

And there are the later years, when health, care needs, and independence may become larger parts of the conversation.

Each phase requires a different kind of planning.

That is why your income strategy, tax strategy, investment strategy, and lifestyle goals should work together.

The Real Goal

The goal isn’t to spend everything. 

The goal is to avoid looking back at 78, 82, or 87 and realizing you protected the money so carefully that you missed the years when it could have done the most good.

You worked hard to build your retirement.

Now the question is whether your plan helps you live it.

At PKAG, we help Canadians build retirement plans that hold up when rules, markets, and life all shift at the same time.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact us.

You can also book a meeting with us and we can go over it in person.

We also have free, no-obligation seminars where we'll discuss AI, tax strategy, and how to stay in control of your retirement plan.

We look forward to hearing from you.

This commentary is intended to provide general information and should not be construed as tax, legal, financial, or other advice. Individual circumstances and current events are critical to sound planning; anyone wishing to act on the information presented should consult with his or her tax, legal or financial advisor.

This information, including any opinion, is based on various sources believed to be reliable, but its accuracy cannot be guaranteed and is subject to change.David Popowich, Faisal Karmali, Leanna Wachniak, Robert Gerrie are Investment Advisors with

CIBC Wood Gundy in Calgary. The views of David Popowich, Faisal Karmali, Leanna

Wachniak, Robert Gerrie do not necessarily reflect those of CIBC World Markets Inc.

CIBC Private Wealth consists of services provided by CIBC and certain of its subsidiaries,

including CIBC Wood Gundy, a division of CIBC World Markets Inc.