{"id":9518,"date":"2015-06-29T07:32:53","date_gmt":"2015-06-29T12:32:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=9518"},"modified":"2015-06-29T07:32:53","modified_gmt":"2015-06-29T12:32:53","slug":"seniors-going-bankrupt-in-soaring-numbers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=9518","title":{"rendered":"Seniors going bankrupt in soaring numbers"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"story-headline\">\n<h3 class=\"story-title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/business\/seniors-going-bankrupt-in-soaring-numbers-1.3129176\" target=\"_blank\">Seniors going bankrupt in soaring numbers<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"story-deck\"><strong>More Canadians are outliving their savings and spending their golden years in debt<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Judy Southon never imagined it would come to this. She and her husband Vic\u00a0had good jobs, raised a son\u00a0and were homeowners. But after a run of bad luck, the 67-year-old wound up deep in debt and had to declare bankruptcy.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I was scared and shocked,&#8221;\u00a0says Southon, who lives in Toronto.<\/p>\n<p>The golden years have become a tarnished chapter for some. Seniors are carrying more debt into retirement and, as a result, a growing number are going bankrupt.<\/p>\n<p>According to the federal\u00a0Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy, 10 per cent of those who declared bankruptcy in 2014 were\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ic.gc.ca\/eic\/site\/bsf-osb.nsf\/eng\/br03377.html#table_11\">aged 65 and older<\/a>. \u00a0That&#8217;s a whopping 20.5 per cent increase from 2010.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/business\/seniors-in-ontario-make-up-30-of-bankruptcies-report-1.3060463\">Seniors in Ontario make up 30% of bankruptcies: report<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Spend savings, pile on debt<\/h2>\n<p>One of the reasons is actually a plus \u2014 we&#8217;re living longer. &#8220;For many of us, we&#8217;re outliving our savings,&#8221;\u00a0explains Nora Spinks with the Vanier Institute of the Family, a non-profit research organization.<\/p>\n<p>Another driving force is that\u00a0more seniors are retiring in the red.<a href=\"http:\/\/www.statcan.gc.ca\/pub\/75-006-x\/2015001\/article\/14167-eng.htm\">According to Statistics Canada<\/a>&#8216;s most recent numbers,\u00a0in 2012, 42.5 per cent\u00a0of people aged 65 and over still had debt. That&#8217;s a stunning increase of 55 per cent since 1999.<\/p>\n<p>Bankruptcy trustee\u00a0Doug Hoyes\u00a0blames the lingering debt largely on our addiction to low interest loans.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If you&#8217;ve got decent credit, you can go out and get a mortgage for 2.5 per cent. So why not be buying the bigger house?&#8221;\u00a0he says. &#8220;Today we don&#8217;t need to save because we all have a line of credit.&#8221;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/business\/the-national-lust-for-home-equity-lines-of-credit-should-we-worry-1.3106533\">The lust for home equity lines of credit: should we worry?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/business\/real-estate-woes-the-secret-lives-of-house-poor-canadians-1.3086793\">Real estate woes: The secret lives of house-poor Canadians<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But paying down debt in your senior years can be challenging on a fixed income. Throw in an unplanned setback like a financially needy adult\u00a0child or a family illness and the bills can become crushing.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Seniors going bankrupt in soaring numbers More Canadians are outliving their savings and spending their golden years in debt Judy Southon never imagined it would come to this. She and her husband Vic\u00a0had good jobs, raised a son\u00a0and were homeowners. But after a run of bad luck, the 67-year-old wound up deep in debt and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1361,63,103,195,1154,431,5631,6812,1936],"class_list":["post-9518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-bankruptcy","tag-banks","tag-canada","tag-debt","tag-interest-rate-policy","tag-interest-rates","tag-retirement","tag-seniors","tag-statistics-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9518"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9519,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9518\/revisions\/9519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}