Purpose

All of us know the importance of saving for the future. However, in the present environment it has assumed far more importance than we realize. The reasons being:

• Our earning years are shortening,
• Grown up children are returning home to stay with their parents,
• We are outliving our savings.

How do we cope with the above factors? It’s not easy but its doable and the whole objective of this site is to present the potential solution irrespective of earning potential. We firmly believe that each and every one of us has the same right to live decently. However, to make this belief a reality, we need to start the process early and do it continuously. Here are the explanations of the above 3 reasons.

Our earning years are shortening

In earlier years, one would start earning right after university or even high school. This allowed an individual to earn income for 30 to 40 years. However, in our changing environment, a high school education is not at all sufficient for a decent income. Even basic university education is not enough to achieve financial security before we stop earning. Therefore, our earning years usually start 4 to 5 years later than usual. Job security is also diminishing. Companies that formerly prided themselves on the slogan “jobs for life” are no longer promising a long term career.

Statistics show that we can no longer count on working after the age 50. Therefore, the earning cycle is between 20 to 30 years.

Grown up children are returning home to stay with the parents

This is closely related to the first point. Newsweek magazine had an excellent article on adult children. Since there is no guarantee of employment and children are finding that their qualifications are insufficient for today’s job market, they are returning home to upgrade their skills or cut down on their living expenses. Globalization of the job market is having an adverse impact on the employment situation in North America. Our living standards and social benefits are making it difficult to effectively compete in this changed market . The only alternative is to upgrade skills, which means a financial burden on parents.

We are outliving our savings

Medical advances have increased the Mortality Rate. We are living longer. Ailments that a few years ago were incurable are now curable. We may not live a healthy life but we are living a longer life. Since our earning years are going down and unexpected expenses are creeping up, our savings are not lasting long enough to sustain our longer life. Statistics are showing that people are postponing their retirement but there are no statistics showing how many people are trying to return to the work force after taking retirement.

We will (on another page) explain the principle of GASP to address this problem.