Tia began her career with a credit union a few years ago and has been a member of the Plan for a couple of years now. At 22, she doesn’t want to be bothered thinking about retirement and she never really gave her pension a second thought until she read the article “Building your retirement income during your 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s." This prompted Tia to take a closer look at her pension investments, despite her limited investing knowledge and experience.

For the first time since becoming a member of the Plan, Tia became aware of the tools and educational resources available on the Plan’s website and decided to take advantage of them to improve her understanding of how best to use the Plan to her benefit.

She registered for myCSSPEN so she could review her pension account details online, and she used the online Risk Tolerance Estimator to determine the investment mix that was best suited for her. Tia’s use of the Risk Tolerance Estimator helped her determine that the growth investor profile best described her current investment objectives and risk tolerance.

“I decided to go with the mix suggested by the Risk Tolerance Estimator. I will invest 80% of my pension funds in the Balanced Fund and 20% in the Equity Fund. I believe this mix will help me achieve strong investment growth over the long-term while keeping my exposure to risk at a level that I can live with.”

Tia plans to start making additional voluntary contributions (AVCs) to take further advantage of the long-term investment returns and low fees offered by the Plan.

She realizes the importance of the decisions she makes today to achieve a successful retirement income outcome in the future, but also that she may need some help managing her investments as her retirement savings grow. Tia plans to consult with an advisor at her credit union or a CSS Retirement and Pension Advisor if she needs assistance with her investment choices.

“For now, I’m fine using the tools and information on the Plan’s website to educate myself and track the growth of my investment with the Plan,” she says.