Paying down debt top priority for 2014

Paying down debt remains the top priority for Canadians in 2014, the fourth year in a row that debt concerns have topped CIBC’s year-ahead poll.

The results also show immediate financial concerns, such as paying the bills, have become more important to Canadians in recent years at the expense of long term goals like retirement planning.

Read: Talk retirement with young clients

For example, while retirement planning was named by 13% of Canadians as their top financial priority entering 2011, it is now 7% entering 2014.

Conversely, paying the bills has grown in priority steadily since 2011, and was named by 8% of Canadians in this year’s survey as their priority for the year ahead.

Canadians’ top financial priorities:

	2014	2013	2012	2011
Paying Down Debt	16%	17%	17%	14%
Building Savings	11%	10%	10%	10%
Managing Day-to-Day Spending / Budgeting	8%	8%	14%	12%
Paying Bills / Getting By	8%	7%	3%	—
Retirement Planning	7%	7%	11%	13%

Read: Follow through on financial New Year’s resolutions

Few talk to advisors

Less than half (47%) of those surveyed say they met with an advisor in the last year. As well, of those surveyed only 6% named debt management as a topic of a conversation they would have with an advisor.

Advisors should talk to their clients about debt management, as part of their larger financial plan, and as a step towards saving for retirement.

Read: Don’t delay planning

Top financial priorities entering 2014:

Age Bracket	Paying Down Debt	Building Savings	Managing Spending	Paying Bills /Getting By	Retirement Planning
National	16%	11%	8%	8%	7%
18-24	21%	15%	8%	3%	1%
25-34	20%	16%	7%	4%	2%
35-44	26%	14%	6%	8%	6%
45-54	16%	9%	6%	8%	12%
55-64	14%	6%	9%	10%	10%
65+	4%	5%	14%	11%	6%

Canadians who named paying down debt their top financial priority:

Age Bracket	2014	2013
18-24	21%	12%
25-34	20%	24%
35-44	26%	28%
45-54	16%	21%
55-64	14%	13%
65+	4%	7%

Canadians who have met with an advisor in the last year, by region:

National	47%
Atlantic Canada	46%
Quebec	41%
Ontario	51%
Manitoba and Saskatchewan	48%
Alberta	51%
British Columbia	43%

Canadians who have met with an advisor in the last year, by age:

Age Bracket
18-24	24%
25-34	45%
35-44	50%
45-54	51%
55-64	59%
65+	47%