TORONTO - It's essential to avoid waiting until the last minute to make your annual RRSP investments. If you are like many other Canadians, and wait until then, you are in danger of seriously short-changing yourself and jeopardizing your financial future.

Meet the Kaderlis. They decided to retire when most of us are just hitting our strides in our careers. But doesn't it make sense to free yourself from work and see the world when you still have the energy to enjoy it?

Read on to find out how they managed it, and what you'd need to do to get there yourself.

With highly volatile stock markets, and a global economy in recession, it's hard to think of RRSPs as a solid way to save money for retirement. But Canadians would do well to remind themselves that RRSPs are not so much an investment as an instrument with obvious and potentially huge advantages.