Financial Considerations

Financial planners aren't talking so much about getting your house into financial order during the empty nest period leading up to retirement. Instead they are writing articles titled, "So Your Kid Wants to be a Rock Star" or "When Mom and Dad go to Iraq, Grandma and Grandpa live on Base" or "Who is the Alzheimer Patient and Who is the Caregiver - the 90 year old mother or the 70 year old daughter". There is an unanticipated trend for the snowbirds to fly back to Canada once their golfing days end which hasn't been budgeted for by municipalities. And with big student loans, the high cost of housing, the instability of relationships and the disappearing jobs, adult children and their offspring are either moving home or the parents are giving them financial aid to stay wherever they are.
So the talk around the baby boomer watering hole these days isn't about freedom 55. The Ontario Government has released a paper by LeRoy O Stone "New Frontiers of Research on Retirement" which is worth a look. When my friends began retiring, I stopped thinking about "What I want to do when I grow up". However, that might have been short sighted on both my part and those who retired early. http://www.publications.gov.on.ca/english/pubonweb/alpha_list.html