Today was the day for our October RSP statements to arrive (they always come around of the middle of the month) and once again: it was all bad news. We've seen the value of our retirement savings drop by about 30% over the past year and a bit, thanks to the meltdown of the stock market and our financial planner's reluctance to get us out of it. He's probably going to be proven right in the long run - he's a professional in this area and I'm certainly not! - but right now it's horribly frustrating to watch the value, that we built up over the past two decades of disciplined saving, just fall and fall and fall.
The silver lining in all of this is that our short-term "bridging" savings, which are supposed to keep us going for the next 8 years or so (if neither of us works at all over that time), are all in interest-bearing accounts with depositors' insurance on them. So while we've seen our RSP value plummet by almost 1/3, this bridging money has continued to grow by about 4% each year. I hate to say it, but that's the sort of savings I prefer! Just imagine if we'd converted all of our RSP money to that form a year ago! (That line of thinking always leads me to dark places... must stop doing that!)
Anyway, with less RSP money every month (as seems to be the pattern right now), I think we've already passed the point at which Vicki and I will now need to go out and find some more work. (Things certainly looked rosier back in early March!) The next 8 years may not be a problem, but at the current pace of "growth" our RSP money won't be anywhere nearly large enough to live off of, starting in 2017, as we'd planned.
So... is anyone out there looking to contract in a highly-talented Project Manager (Vicki) or a highly-entertaining Agile enthusiast?! :-)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
No, but I will buy your new book.
Post a Comment