Aug 11, 2026
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It’s easy to romanticize retirement. After decades of collecting a paycheque, building a savings plan and sticking to it, why wouldn’t you picture a grand payoff at the end of the road?
And Canadians are setting their standards higher than ever — on average, they now believe they need $1.7 million to retire comfortably, up from $1.54 million a year earlier, but more than one-third say they’re unlikely to reach that target.
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However, retirement experts caution that reality can hit hard once retirement actually begins, and the gap between what you planned for and what daily life feels like can catch even circumspect savers off guard.
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Getting realistic about what retirement will look like won’t just help you avoid the whiplash many new retirees experience — it can also enable you to build a sturdier plan to feel more confident once you get there.
Here are five hard truths to face before you call it a career.
Retirement isn’t one long vacation
Some people picture their golden years as one long trip with multiple destinations.
But living a nomadic lifestyle comes with its own stress. YouTuber Joe Kuhn says he thought his retirement would be “this permanent adventure of travel”, and when he wasn’t trekking foreign terrain, he’d be planning his next trip.
In reality, he found travel disrupted his exercise, diet, sleep and routines — the packing, the airports, the missed flights and the unfamiliar beds added up.
Kuhn says he and his wife were happiest when they found a balance between globetrotting and staying put, and that travel felt better once they stopped treating it as proof they were winning at retirement.
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‘I can always go back to work’
Some future retirees ease their nerves about outliving their savings — or about being bored — with the reassurance that they can always go back to work if things don’t pan out.
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Increasingly, that’s exactly what’s happening. Statistics Canada found that one in ten Canadians aged 55 and older who previously retired had since returned to work in 2023, up from 7% in 2019. Some reasons influencing this decision include high family debt, greater educational attainment and premature retirement.
Kuhn says retirement “feels less frightening when you tell yourself I can always go back to work”, but cautions that once someone has experienced the freedom of controlling all of their own time, it’s hard to go back. His advice: don’t retire casually, and don’t assume the door back to your old career will always be open.
For some people, this departure isn’t a single last day on the job, but rather a slow transition, blending part-time work, consulting or seasonal employment with traditional retirement income.
You might need to branch out
Cultivating new routines and relationships doesn’t just ease the transition to retirement — it can also support your overall well-being. “We must stay socially and cognitively engaged as we age,” psychologist Deborah Buckwalter told The Washington Post. For her, that meant learning bass guitar and forming a band with friends.
Donna Wiench, a retired nonprofit development officer and journalist, told the outlet that taking classes on everything from boxing to poetry to geography helped her meet new people, and that she found tuition-free audit programs for older adults along the way.
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However, Kuhn warns that while hobbies make great ingredients for retirement, once a hobby becomes something you can do all day, every day, some of the shine can wear off. It’s important to juggle recreational interests with socialization, relationship building and other mental stimuli.
Breaking open the nest egg can be scary
According to Kuhn, when it finally comes time to start drawing down hard-earned retirement savings, the transition can be difficult. “The first portfolio withdrawal can feel like something is really wrong. That asset is now going down in value,” he says.
It can also be hard to switch identities — from the disciplined saver who paid off the mortgage and drove an old car, to a spender.
This is where Canada’s public pensions only go so far. The maximum Canada Pension Plan (CPP) retirement pension starting at 65 is $1,507.65 a month, but the average new recipient collects closer to $877.01. Old Age Security (OAS) adds up to $751.97 a month for those aged 65 to 74. Combined, that’s an income most Canadians would find difficult to live on in cities such as Toronto or Vancouver, which is part of why RRSP and TFSA savings, workplace pensions or part-time income so often have to fill the gap.
If the thought of drawing down your own savings makes your heart pound, you can build confidence in your plan by connecting with a fee-only financial planner. Running the numbers for the scenarios you could face in retirement — market downturns, high inflation or a major health episode — can help ensure your plan is robust, so you can focus on what actually matters: travel, health, building a new community or discovering new interests.
Your next steps
Once you’ve faced the harder truths, a few concrete moves can make the transition steadier:
- Decide your CPP timing deliberately — taking it at 60 permanently cuts the payment, while delaying to 70 permanently increases it, so run the numbers before you default to 65
- Plan your RRSP, RRIF and TFSA withdrawal order with a fee-only certified financial planner (CFP) rather than guessing, since the sequence affects your taxes and any OAS clawback
- Test a practice retirement budget for three to six months before you leave your job, so the shift from paycheque to withdrawal feels less like a shock
- Build at least one non-financial routine — a hobby, a volunteer commitment or a fitness plan — before your last day, not after it
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Rebecca Payne has more than a decade of experience editing and producing both local and national daily newspapers. She's worked on the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, Metro, Canada's National Observer, the Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press.
