posts about FINANCIAL PLANNING
Over time, your investments will perform however they perform. Inflation will do its thing to your expenses. Your income will grow (or not). You’ll save more or less than you thought you’d be able to. The interest on your debt will change, and you’ll pay off more or less than we assumed. Tax policy will definitely change to incentivize different behaviours.
This, friends, is the reason it’s called “financial planning”: it’s an iterative process, rather than a one-and-done product.
There’s not a lot that I can tell you with utter certainty, but here’s something I know for sure: things will go wrong. Here’s what to do if you, like me, don’t own a time machine and can’t travel to the past to do all the “right” things ahead of time.
If you are eligible for the Disability Tax Credit, you can get up to $70,000 from the federal government by opening and contributing to a Registered Disability Savings Plan, and if you have low or no income, you can get up to $20,000 without having to contribute a single penny, just by opening an account.
If you’re thinking of getting started with financial planning, and are feeling intimidated by what you think you need to know before you even begin, here’s a step by step guide to getting organized.
It can be intimidating and pretty scary to buy a home for the first time, not to mention pants-wettingly expensive. Squeezing every last tax-free dollar out of registered programs like the First Home Savings Account is worth doing. If you have extra money that you can afford to save for your first home, or even if you don’t own a home and never will, this episode is for you.
A Defined Contribution Pension Plan is a mash up between a Defined Benefit Pension Plan and an investment account. Very little about it is guaranteed, so knowing how it works (and how it doesn’t), is the best way to get the most out of it.
There are plenty of tricky little financial planning traps for US citizens living in Canada, and they change often enough to be difficult to stay on top of, if you ever get on top of them in the first place. I’m not on top of them and never will be.
If you’re a US citizen, please for the love of all that’s holy find and work with a financial planner who knows cross-border planning in and out. You don’t want them learning on the job if you’re the job they’re learning on; the consequences of getting it wrong are too high.
Maybe you’re tired of your labour being exploited for someone else’s profit, or how toxic your workplace is, or being evaluated for the quantity of time you spend in the office instead of the quality of the work you do.
If you’re thinking of starting what the kids these days call a side hustle, or what people at my advanced stage of life call “a business”, this episode is for you.
Nobody wants to talk about insurance, at least, not with the people who sell it hard, and man - I get it. But if you depend on your ability to work to pay the bills, or if other people depend on you for their food and shelter, you have to at least think about it.
Today, we’re taking five minutes to think about life and disability insurance that you own yourself, as opposed to the group policy you might be part of through work).
If you’re in a position to put money away for the future, knowing the basics of Tax Free Savings Accounts and Registered Retirement Savings Plan can help you decide what kind of account makes the most sense…for you, specifically.
If you’re even a little bit interested in money, you’re going to encounter RRSPs. They’re everywhere, especially during RRSP season, that 60 days at the beginning of the year when everyone, including your uncle, is trying to get you to contribute.
RRSPs aren’t a bad thing. They’re not a good thing. They’re a tool that might be useful to you, and the more you know, the more useful they can be.
The last thing I want for anyone who is fortunate enough to have a team of professionals is for egos to get in the way. I want your professionals to confer with each other, disagree if they need to, and provide you with a united strategy that makes the most out of each person’s expertise to serve the only thing that matters: what’s most important to you.
Today’s episode is a long one, because your employee benefits (if you have them) are important to Present You and to Future You, and it takes time to understand what they are and how they work. And, fair warning: this episode has homework.
If you’re one of those few, those happy few with a defined benefit pension plan, let’s talk about the four most important questions you might want to know the answers to: when you’ll get it, how much you’ll get, whether it’s going to increase with the cost of living, and what happens if you leave your job before you retire. Find out where to get all this information (and who to talk to if you can’t) in today’s episode.
If part of what you want for the kids in your life is to help them get an education, contributing to a Registered Education Savings Plan probably makes sense. In this episode, we’re getting you ready to start and make the most of your RESP.
Your Service Canada Account is a workhorse. It’s a treasure trove of information about your student loans, EI programs, the Canadian Dental Care Plan, Canada Pension Plan, CPP Disability Plan, and Old Age Security. In this episode of Ready…Set…Money, we’ll learn how to get access to your account and what it’s useful for so you’re ready for the next time you need it.
Your CRA Account is a treasure trove of information that I guarantee you’ve needed in the past and will need again in the future. In this episode of Ready…Set…Money, learn how to get access to your account and what it’s useful for so you’re ready for the next time you need it.
It seems like a nice, well-meaning idea, but the concept of knowing your way to financial success is actually nice, well-meaning baloney.
Most of the value in a financial plan (or facelift, or makeover, or what-have-you) is in showing your work, not in the answers themselves. That is, the fact that recommendations are made for you is equally - if not more - important than the fact that recommendations are made at all.
If your basic needs are being met, and you have more than you need to get by, you have the luxury of deciding what to do with that extra money.
This is important, because–as the saying goes–you can have anything, but you can’t have everything. You have to decide what you want, and you have to decide what you’re willing (or not willing) to do to get it.