Retirement planning question

John and April have been referred to you by one of your best clients for help with their financial affairs. John is self-employed as a Massage Therapist and April is a teacher. They are not married. John is 41 years old and has just recently graduated as an RMT. He is building his practice and is surprised by how fast it is growing. He has been in practice for two and a half years and is paying himself a salary of $50,000 per year. April is 35 and has been working as a teacher for the past 12 years. They have one child, Samuel, who just turned a year old. April earns a salary of $65,000 with summers off. John was married before he met April. He was married for two years but had no children. He now pays his former wife a spousal support of $800 per month. John and April have been living in an apartment while they save for a house for the last 6 years. They are paying a rent of $1,200 a month. They are looking to buy a house soon. Another family issue that a house would solve would be to allow April's mother Sarah to move in with them. Sarah just turned 63 and is thinking of retiring. Her savings consist of $125,000 invested in GIC's earning 4%; she has no pension and will likely be relying on government pensions to live. John and April are concerned that Sarah will not have enough to live on, given that government pensions do not provide much in the way of income. Sarah has lived in Canada all her life and has always worked. She is in very good health. John and April both have small RRSPs that are invested in GICs at their local bank. John has about $10,000 and April has $15,000. April also has a pension through the teacher's association. Her last PA was $3,500 and the commuted value of the pension was $35,000 on her last statement. John and April have been increasingly concerned with the low rates on GICs at renewal time. They have felt for some time that they needed to do something so John and April saw another Financial Planner a few months ago but found him too pushy. They tell you that he wanted them to sign a contract without reading it and that they felt pressured to buy that day without really understanding the information they were given. The pushy planner had told them that if they did not start investing the same day, they would not have enough time to save all the money they would need. He told them that they would need to have savings of $500,000 by the time they retire, assuming they both wanted to retire when John is 65. John & April had told him that they both expected to live 25 years in retirement and that they would need $55,000 (in future dollars) per year excluding all savings to date.