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CPP: “How Long Is A Piece of String?”
June 22nd, 2011At a recent meeting of the Retirement Planners Association of Canada (RPAC), Willie Jack and I were challenged to calculate the effective rate of return on contributions made to the Canada Pension Plan (CPP). Interestingly, we used quite different approaches but came up with similar results. They must be right!
Willie considered an individual born on [...]
Spending your money!
May 23rd, 2011Shortly before I left for vacation, William Jack and I were meeting with a client for whom we had just prepared a financial model. Given the client’s goal of not wanting to leave a significant estate, our advice was,” you can afford to spend more”. Noting that the client enjoyed travelling, we suggested that he [...]
Read more »Canada Pension Plan Changes Start This Year
May 18th, 2011The CPP was designed in the early to mid 60’s. Fifty years later, Canadians are healthier, better educated and living longer. In particular, Canadians are working later in life and deferring retirement. As well, the retirement experience is changing from a single event, usually at 65, to a process that can extend over many years. The critical demographic development is the “age wave” of the boomers moving past their 65th birthdays. This wave starts to build in 2011 and will not crest until 20 years from now. It is important to address any imbalances and inequities in the design of the CPP sooner rather than later.
Read more »Starting the Transition: Managing Risk
April 11th, 2011I turned 65 in February and wife Mary is about the same age. In common with many people our age, we are at the start of a transition from accumulating retirement savings to converting those assets into an income stream that supports our lifestyle and our vision of retirement. We have spent considerable amount of time addressing these challenges which we will discuss in later articles. As Mary and I begin this “assets to income” conversion, we have been very careful to identify and plan for the risks to our retirement income. The following list developed by Peter Drake, Vice President, Retirement and Economic Research, Fidelity Investments Canada provides a good overview of things you should consider.
Read more »A “Just in Case File”
February 3rd, 2011In January, 2009, Good Times magazine printed an article written by Lillian Newberry, titled “Your Just in Case File”. The article talks about her husband’s sudden death and a binder that he had put together in the event that something like this happened. This article, click here, has been reprinted with permission from Good Times.
The [...]
Downsizing (Part Two)
January 21st, 2011My wife and I continue our discussions about our next move. What is of major importance to us, is to be able to lock the door and leave for months at a time with a minimum of inconvenience, such as meeting house insurance occupancy rules. We have satisfied ourselves that either an apartment or a [...]
Read more »Our Shopping List
January 4th, 2011After looking at several condos and townhouses in the city, Mary and I decided that it would be a good idea to put together a list of the attributes and features of a desirable location. There are several reasons to do this. The first is to start our negotiations long before we plunge into the [...]
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