Who am I …
I am a 51 years old, husband of a beautiful wife and father of two teens, girl and boy.
I have BSc. in Physical Education from Sherbrooke University in Quebec, Canada. I love sports and that is why I have been a “physed” teacher for about 29 years. I try to teach young kids that it is important to move and have fun.
After saying that you are probably wondering:
He is not close to retirement
You are right,
I wanted to be a teacher for the reasons I mentioned up above but I also thought at the time, that being employed by the government I would have a secured job, good health plan, but the big one, was a good pension plan.
Oh boy did I get this wrong.
When I was younger my wife and I wanted to explore the country so we moved to Western Canada for a few years. Started to teach in French immersion programs and the kids were great. After four or five years life brought us back to where we started.
About five years ago a friend and I were talking about retirement. He asked the big question: how long do you have left ? I answered: I’m not sure. I did not know how things worked so I told him: I’ll have to look into it.
Surprise of my life
I got home and read carefully the paper we get in the mail from our pension group, RREGOP here for teacher in Quebec. I could not believe what I was reading. Full pension at 67. Did not make sense, I would have been working as a teacher for 44 years full time. Do not get me wrong, I love to teach, but I was also looking forward to retirement.
Remember the beginning of my story, those years out west, well they cost me a lot of years.
I found out that I was not advised properly when I came back to Quebec. The RREGOP person on the phone told me to cash my years out was because they were lost anyway, so I did just that, cashed out $2300.
Big mistake it turns out. Cannot buy the years back because I did not work in the same province.
So Carl keep working.
By now you understand my interest with my website.
I need to find a way to supplement my retirement income before I am 67.
More important. I know many of you are in the same boat.
I started this website to let people know that it is possible to supplement your retirement income and not to wait until the last minute.
Here it is. You know me a bit better now.
Thanks for taking the time and feel free to leave a comment or ask questions.
I would love to hear your story.
Carl
Founder of: How to supplement your retirement income