Joanne Thibault wasn’t expecting that she would need to return to the workforce to make ends meet after retiring in 2011.
Nearly 55 per cent of Canadians could be in Thibault’s position if they don’t make lifestyle compromises to avoid outliving their financial savings, according to a study from Deloitte.
“It hit home to me the vulnerability I have,” said Thibault, 68. “I don’t really have the luxury of saying, ‘Yes, I want to work,’ or ‘No, I don’t want to work.”
Thibault retired after working for the Manitoba government. For the first three and a half years of her retirement, she volunteered on a hospital ship in Africa. Once she finished her time around the continent, she decided to resettle in Victoria to be closer to her sister in 2016.
To fill the hours of her day, Thibault decided to dip her toes back into work as a researcher and consultant.
“I just landed work that was quite enjoyable. It was like a hobby more than a profession,” she said. “But since now the whole inflation and cost it’s really changed to a ‘nice to have’ to ‘it’s really necessary to have’ for me to have a sense of financial security.”
The biggest blow Thibault has taken was expenses from her strata in 2022. She and 21 other people in her building were all looking at doing building exterior renovations, and were all on board. The estimate of costs for the upgrades was $25,000 to $30,000. Still, it got worse after COVID-19 impacted supply chain bottlenecks. Not only did the prices of construction materials increase but so did the labour.
“For me, I was just buying new into that strata. That was reasonable for what was being contemplated – new balconies, new enclosures, and a new exterior to the building. I thought it was a really sound investment and I was very comfortable with it,” said Thibault. “Well, over the course of the year and a half that we actually had to plan the project, I then was facing a levy of $94,000. At the current interest rates, that equals $1,000 a month extra, that’s a pretty heavy hit.”
The strata defended the project on the building, although the renovation plans were immensely more than expected.
“Now we’re in this horrible situation of being uncertain about what we can afford to do,” said Thibault.
When factoring in unexpected costs, the percentage of Canadians having to make affordable lifestyle changes jumps to 73 per cent, according to the Deloitte study. It was also found that only 14 per cent of three million soon-to-retire households can retire with confidence, while 31 per cent of near-retirees will require support in the form of the government’s public pension system.
Thibault no longer has the luxury of working when she feels like it and has become reliant on her income.
“I’m a lot more reserved about not doing the work because I want to make sure I can protect the income, and I want to make sure that those people that are hiring me know that there is that whole added layer of needing to think very carefully about what I’m doing and not being that carefree retiree who can live on their pitch.”
Permanently retiring is not in the cards for Thibault anytime soon. She mentioned she doesn’t have an extravagant lifestyle, but to leave her two jobs she’d cut cable costs, curtail her travels, expect her 2009 vehicle to run smoothly, and become a non-vehicle owner if it doesn’t. In the meantime, the double-income worker has become content with the security of employment.
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