Here's how cost-of-living challenges are shaking up Canadian seniors' retirement plans

CTV National News: Retirement plans on hold Many seniors are sacrificing their retirement plans to help younger family members struggling with the cost of living. Alex Karpa reports.

With the high cost of living increasingly a concern, some seniors are choosing to make sacrifices to help their adult children and grandchildren make ends meet.

Some would-be retirees told CTVNews.ca that they’re pitching in to help their family members cover everyday living expenses, including groceries, rent and school tuition.

They spoke about the challenges the younger generations of their family are facing, how they are coping with the extra financial responsibilities and the impact these costs have had on their retirement plans.

Here are some stories they shared:

A sacrifice for three grandchildren

Anne Walsh is one of the seniors who reached out to CTVNews.ca to talk about her efforts to help the younger generations of her family.

Anne says she never thought twice about quitting her job as a waitress 17 years ago to raise her three granddaughters on her own, but that her disability benefits aren’t enough, and she relies on the food bank and her church for support.

The 63-year-old woman from Oshawa, Ont., says her daughter and her then-boyfriend were only teenagers when they became parents in the mid-2000s, and were dealing with drug addiction at the time. Anne, who divorced her husband 30 years ago, said she didn’t want the children to be put into foster care, so she applied for and was granted full custody of them.

Back in 2007, she took in her daughter's toddler and six-week-old baby when she was living in an apartment in Cambridge, Ont. She took custody of her daughter's third child nearly three years later. The girls are now 19, 16 and 12 years old. Her eldest grandchild will be starting college in the new year, with help from student loans and a few grants, she said.

Covering daily expenses has been hard at times, and she hasn't been able put away any money for retirement, but she said the sacrifice was worth it.

"It is a struggle. As you know, I'm not the only one out there that's struggling these days with the high rent cost and the food cost,” Anne said in a recent interview with CTVNews.ca.

She’s also faced physical challenges. Anne hasn’t been able to work since she had back surgery years ago, and says her back problems and knee replacements make it hard for her even to stand or sit too long. Her granddaughters help her get up and down the stairs of their home.

"I do what I can and they do what they can," she said.

Anne receives financial aid from the government, including a child tax benefit for two of the children and Ontario Disability Support Program cheques. The Catholic church she is a member of helps her every three months if she needs it, supplying gift cards for the grocery store, she added.

Her sister pitches in a lot and she pays her back. Sometimes, she says, she turns to her family to help her get by for a week until her next benefit cheque arrives.

Even with little money, she and her grandchildren have not gone hungry, although there were times it was close, she said. Her family finds opportunities to save where they can, but also don’t miss out on celebrating the holidays.

"They always have clothes on their back, a roof over their head and food in their bellies. That's all that matters to me," Anne said. "During the year, the children don't get too much. But at Christmastime I try to do what I can and give them a good Christmas and a good meal on the table."

With rent for a two-bedroom home and other expenses, she says it helps that she doesn't have any debt or credit cards. While she doesn't always get to fully pay her bills on time, she eventually pays everything off, she said.

Anne also uses the food bank each month and buys food in bulk.

"I just manage – I budget well, I buy food that will last me," she said.

A bright spot for Anne is that things are looking up for her grandchildren's mother. Her 34-year-old daughter lives with her new fiancé in their own apartment, is working and getting financial assistance for food and housing, she said. She has been clean for months, Anne said, and sees her children every week. The girls’ father lives out of town and sees the children once or a few times a year, she added.

To help with costs, her teenage grandchildren are trying to find jobs but are having trouble getting hired, she said.

"It's hard. You just do the best you can and hope it's OK," she said. "I just hope I'm still around 20 years to make sure they're OK."

‘An advance on her inheritance’

With some financial cushion, Liz Sharpe and her husband, Tom, say they support their 25-year-old daughter, but are fortunate that they haven’t found it challenging due to a few factors including an inheritance and long-term planning.

Liz, a 66-year-old retired hospital manager, and Tom paid off most of their daughter’s tuition and living expenses, from rent and groceries to dog food and vet bills.

Both Liz and her 71-year-old husband are debt-free and are semi-retired with work pensions and investments, making it possible to support their daughter, she said. What's more, she said, her husband’s inheritance from his late parents helped.

"We use that money to subsidize her because we don't need that money to live on," Liz said in a recent video interview with CTVNews.ca from Calgary. "So it isn't negative for us. We just see it as her getting an advance on her inheritance.”

She said her daughter got student loans and grants, but Liz didn't want her to be in debt when she graduated, so they plan to pay back her loans. She estimates that she and her husband have spent about $3,000 a month to support her daughter through her post-secondary studies, though her daughter worked part-time jobs to help out.

Since her daughter has attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), she qualified for extra student loans and grants to help pay for accommodations during her schooling, she said.

Liz says she and her husband are a "frugal” middle-class family who are fortunate enough to be able to help their child financially.

Liz and Tom adopted their only child when she was five. Along with monthly social services funding to help them with the adoption, they saved money in a Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP). The government's long-term education savings plan helped pay for her daughter's tuition for a four-year undergrad program in psychology, she said. With tuition, rent and other expenses, the overall cost was about $22,000 a year to put her daughter through undergraduate school, Liz estimated.

When her daughter graduated from school three years ago, she worked for about a year-and-a-half in entry-level positions, Liz said. Her daughter then decided to return to school to do a one-year certificate in addictions counselling, and graduated last week. Liz said she and her husband plan to pay off her daughter's student loan for the one-year program as well, which amounts to almost $15,000.

"In a couple of weeks' time, she's moving out to Whistler and hoping to find work between there and Vancouver in her field," Liz said, noting that she's planning on supporting her until she lands a job. "The cost of living is very high in Vancouver, but she and her boyfriend are going to live in a trailer in Whistler for ski season and that's cheaper than an apartment. So hopefully that will be within their budget if they're both working."

Postponing retirement to help family

Catherine Williams and her husband, Bruce, have paused their retirement plans and their dream to buy a lakefront residence, saying they’d rather help their family for now.

Postponing retirement is a sacrifice Catherine and Bruce of Fort Saskatchewan, Alta., said they are making in part because they’ve been financially helping multiple family members, but they say it’s not “because we have to. We do it because we want to.”

Catherine, 67, works for a non-profit, while her 73-year-old husband is gradually turning down work projects for his business so he can retire in about three years.

For more than 15 years, Catherine says, she and Bruce have been supporting her 40-year-old daughter with rising living expenses, vet bills and other costs.

She says Maria, her daughter from her first marriage, told her she is “very grateful” for the financial help, but feels badly for being a “burden.” Catherine says her daughter doesn't make enough money as a delivery driver to afford groceries, rent, utilities and car payments.

“She doesn't go on trips anywhere or do anything, so it's not like she's spending money extravagantly," Catherine said in a recent video interview with CTVNews.ca.

She loaned Maria $5,000 to reduce her credit card debt, she said, after Maria maxed out her high-interest-rate credit cards.

To help her afford food, Catherine said, she and Bruce give Maria homemade leftover meals and some of the groceries they buy in bulk.

Life hasn't been easy for her daughter who has health challenges and has been working in low-paying retail or service industry positions for years, Catherine said. Though Maria went to college to become a sheriff, Catherine said, she found the job too stressful.

Maria was living with her and Bruce at one point, Catherine said, but decided to move out to be closer to work, opting to rent her own place in Edmonton.

Over the past three years, Catherine and Bruce have also helped financially support one of their grandchildren, the adult son of one of Catherine’s children, with various expenses including rent and debt payments.

And they’ve been helping Catherine’s youngest son, Brent, who pays child support for his two children in Edmonton and recently got laid off from his job working in a mine. She says they buy him and his family groceries and clothing and help pay off car-related expenses. Williams says she and her husband also fully paid the dental bills for Brent’s son, which totalled more than $3,600.

And they have helped Bruce’s eldest son, a teacher, pay off his student loan, which had a 30 per cent interest, she said.

Her stepson and his family of five live in Toronto and face the high costs of living associated with life in the city.

"He was never getting anywhere, so he asked for help," she said about the student loan. "We helped him to pay that off, and now he's trying to pay us back when he can."