How financial journalists plan their own retirement

At the end of June, Rob left the paper after 29 years; his beat was PF for 27 of those years. But as is typical of financial pundits, he’s not really “retiring” in the classic sense—he has just left salaried employment. At age 62, he concedes my term “Findependence” is an apt description of his changed status. He plans to write two monthly columns for the Globe: one on his new retirement experience, the other on traditional PF. His popular Carrick on Money column will be written by Globe and Mail colleagues and has been renamed simply On Money.

Rob and I both look back to the pioneering work Bruce Cohen did on the Canadian PF beat, which Bruce handed off to me a few years after I joined the Financial Post in 1993. While we view him as the grandfather of Canadian PF writing, Bruce himself modestly credits two earlier PF writers for being in effect the great-grandfathers of the genre: the late Mike Grenby and Henry Zimmer.

Rob spent a decade with Canadian Press before the Globe; after joining, he sold editors on the fact that at the time, no one at the paper was covering PF the way Cohen did. The Toronto Star had Ellen Roseman and James Daw covering PF. James is now retired. I recall Ellen saying in a speech, years ago, that she does not intend to ever retire. That has not changed, she confirmed for this column. Now 78, she continues to work in semi-retirement as a financial educator and public speaker.

Unlike other journalists mentioned in this column, Bruce is one of the few who actually did truly retire: after a five-year transition, he says, he fully retired at the traditional retirement age of 65. Now 75, he lives on 50 acres north of Toronto. He cites actuary Malcolm Hamilton’s conclusion that spending and lifestyle in retirement are pretty much the same as in pre-retirement: “Ergo, most people did not need a 70% income replacement ratio. That’s been true for me, though I don’t know if it still applies  to the general population as many older people seem to carry significant debt into retirement and many adult children are living with their parents.”

Back in the FP newsroom, I used to sit across from Garry Marr, who wrote on allied subjects like real estate and mortgages. Garry left some years ago, but the FP just announced he is returning as a full-time columnist to take over—you guessed it!—the PF beat. His first column appeared on August 12.

Asked for his tips via email, Marr said he’s not retiring, but those who hope to one day should take advantage of employer matches on RRSPs. “I’m returning to Postmedia with two LIRAs stuffed with employer contributions. The pick-up on this by employees is extremely low. How many circumstances are there where a 100% return on your money makes no sense? … Never turn down free money.”

Retiring from full-time blogging on retirement

This spring, American retirement blogger Fritz Gilbert made the ironic announcement that he is “retiring” from full-time blogging about retirement. However, he’s keeping his blog, The Retirement Manifesto, going and will write when the mood strikes him.

For this column, Gilbert says that while money issues may be top of mind earlier in our careers, “we soon realize the true value comes in figuring out the non-financial issues. As we move through retirement, we realize how truly complex those non-financial issues are, and we discover that it’s in those issues where we find our true happiness …  I’ve found the best path to a great retirement is to practice the art of focusing on others more than you do on yourself … Recognize that you’re responsible for finding your way through the maze, and experiment, experiment, experiment as you face the continual changes in your life.”

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Bruce Cohen emphasizes that healthspan is more important for retirees than lifespan, and he suggests a big part of choosing where to retire is having access to health care now and in the future. In addition, “Social activity is vital and can support physical as well as mental health.” Hobbies are important for the mind: he recently took up photography via an iPhone 16 Pro.

I don’t expect Carrick or Gilbert will fully retire for quite some time. I’m 72 and still going, and have to admit I have been influenced by seasoned financial writers like Gordon Pape and Patrick McKeough. Pape is in his late 80s but continues to publish his Internet Wealth Builder newsletter and write regular columns for the Globe. McKeough is in his mid-70s but still publishes investor newsletters like Canadian Wealth Builder and Wall Street Forecaster. (I often republish his blogs on my website.)

Going back to my interview with Rob Carrick, we began our Zoom exchange where I left off with Garry Marr: on the value of employer pensions. Carrick says he was fortunate to be in the Globe’s defined benefit pension plan. “Retirement is like building a wall of many bricks. My pension is [just] one brick.” His wife, a consultant, also has a small HOOPP pension, so that’s two hefty bricks as a solid base.

Priority one was paying off the mortgage

While such pensions reduce the amount of available RRSP contribution room (via the so-called pension adjustment), Carrick always maximized whatever room remained. What worked for the couple was paying off their mortgage in their 50s, then transferring the freed-up payments “dollar for dollar” into RRSPs and TFSAs. He admits that he and his wife were fortunate to have entered the housing market decades ago. Not for nothing did my financial novel Findependence Day declare “the foundation of financial independence is a paid-for home.”

“You’re totally right about that,” Carrick says, adding he is sad about how hard it is for younger people who bought homes after the run-up in prices in 2020/2021. 

Unlike me, Carrick has no immediate plans to start a RRIF. During his wealth accumulation days, he was a do-it-yourself (DIY) investor, primarily investing in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and dividend stocks. However, as he started to contemplate retiring from full-time work over the last 18 months, he consulted a financial planner and consolidated various retirement accounts. His planner manages most of the Carrick family’s portfolio and “I’m leaving when-to-RRIF to him. He gives us a road map I’m following: RRIFs are in the future, but we don’t need to crack them open yet.” 

Most of his money is now in a mix of ETFs, individual stocks, and GICs purchased when interest rates were higher. “I didn’t want to be one of those retirees who opens up their investment account every morning to see how they’re doing and make all these changes,” Carrick says. “Have a good plan and stick with it: check every six to 12 months and that’s it.”

Investing in asset allocation ETFs

Knowing Carrick was an early enthusiastic proponent of asset allocation ETFs, I suggested that while many financial journalists know that in theory a single asset allocation ETF may be all we really need, in reality most are tempted to dabble in multiple investments.