What I want for you in 2018

It’s the home stretch, friends. Even though we all know calendar years are arbitrary, that humans celebrate the new year at different times, and that your personal and financial growth can’t possibly be measured in tidy 365 day increments, the end of one year and beginning of another still feels exciting and sometimes a little fraught.

This year, as always, I want you to end it well. I want you to make your deadlines (if you have RESP contributions, for example, or have to take an RRIF withdrawal, or need to make a payment on a spousal loan).

I want you to expand your horizons. To look at the fresh, clean year that’s just around the corner (or a few months down the road still if you don’t celebrate January 1st) and decide what needs to happen in it for you to be successful -- whatever that means for you -- to map out the time and money you’ll realistically need, and make whatever trade-offs necessary to get it done.

I want you have such a strong vision for what you’re going to accomplish in the next year that you can’t wait to get started. Relax over the holidays like a rocket, fuelling up to take off as soon as the countdown is over.

If you don’t have that kind of compelling vision for what next year is going to hold for you, may I recommend the book Designing Your Life, by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans? And if you have the vision, but don’t know whether you have the resources to reach it, please give me a call. Helping you use your resources to create a successful life on your own terms is what I do.

The Federal Government has also announced that effective January 1, 2019 the annual TFSA contribution limit will be increased to $6,000. If you haven't yet contributed to your TFSA that means you have built up a total of $63,500 in contribution since the account opened in 2009!

Because Money Season Five has started, and you can catch me in two new episodes: I Know What You Did on Hiatus and Planning to Get Sick.