I got laid off from the O&G industry at 56 early on in the Alberta recession and decided it was useless trying to find employment at that age, especially since the O&G industry was not hiring back then, in fact has only started recovering now after 9 years. While not working I finished the log house in BC we had started 3 years earlier, my wife retired a few months after me and we moved to BC shortly after.
I had enough dividend income, which along with minimal RRSP withdrawals allowed us to live quite well and take 2 months off every winter to visit locations closer to the equator. I took CPP at 60 and will take OAS later this year when I turn 65. My wife will take CPP later this year but it is minimal as we lived overseas for 12 years and so only worked in Canada for about 14 years (she immigrated to Canada 2 years before we got married) Covid has really screwed up our winters as we went nowhere last year and are not sure we will make Cuba this year.
By living off dividend income and the dividend tax credit, we have managed to keep our income tax bill very low. We paid $800 in taxes one year,, under $100 for a few years and zero for a few.. With Covid our expenses have gone down and our retirement savings have gone up, especially when I put a lot into Bank Preferred shares in March 2020.
For something to do, I worked on the census last year, terrible pay, just over minimum wage and after working less than 200 hours, I qualified for $500/week unemployment insurance for 50 weeks. Feel a little guilty taking it, but as I told my son, why refuse it when it is nothing to the government.