Hub Blogs

Hub Blogs contains fresh contributions written by Financial Independence Hub staff or contributors that have not appeared elsewhere first, or have been modified or customized for the Hub by the original blogger. In contrast, Top Blogs shows links to the best external financial blogs around the world.

Why It’s Important To Talk With Your Kids About Money

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BriefingBy Gary Rabbior,

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

Do you talk with your kids about money matters? Are you preparing them to handle the financial decisions and responsibilities they will face in their lives? Do you get a sense that your kids are getting the financial knowledge, or developing the financial skills, in school that they will need in life? Or do you know much at all about what your kids know about money – and how they make financial decisions>

If you are like many parents today, the answers to those questions may not be very encouraging. In this day and age, with money matters so dominant in so many peoples’ lives, it almost seems surprising to have to advocate for talking with our kids about money to help them prepare for their financial futures. But that is what we  — The Canadian Foundation for Economic Education (CFEE) and BMO Financial Group — are doing with the Talk With Our Kids About Money Day program, which happens today (Wed., April 15th).  We are encouraging and helping parents and teachers to talk with our kids about money.

Early days for school-based Fin Lit Continue Reading…

Winning the Tax Game during Your Decumulation Years

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Tax Game Screenshot (800x496)We’re happy to present another Decumulation blog from the forward-thinking Doug Dahmer, which you can find below.

This instalment focuses on a very interesting web-based game that demonstrates how important tax planning is, particularly during your Decumulation years.

No doubt you’ll be shocked but not surprised to discover that the single biggest expense in Retirement will be income tax. Fortunately, there is more opportunity to take advantage of proper tax planning once you have begun to draw down on your nest egg. After you read Doug’s blog below, click on the links provided to view a 3-minute video on how to play the Retirement Tax Game. Then you’ll want to play the game yourself to see how well prepared you are for this daunting task. Note that you may be asked to download Microsoft Silverlight in order to play the game. — Jonathan Chevreau 

By Doug Dahmer,

Emeritus Retirement Income Specialists

Special to the Financial Independence Hub 

Many of our clients and friends still believe there’s  inherent fairness in government programs.

When I point out disparities in medical services, government contracts, municipal board decisions, welfare payments and the greatest of them all —  taxation —  I, sadly, waken them to the painful reality that lots of government programs just aren’t fair.

Too often in our first world, enlightened, democratic society it is still “What you know,” “Who you know” and “When you know.”

While I can’t help with many of the program disparities I can help in one and it’s the most important to you anyway: Taxation.

The greatest expense in retirement Continue Reading…

Life Annuities: What to Watch Out For When You Buy

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chantal-marr-findependence-hub
Chantal Marr

By Chantal Marr,

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

An annuity is a type of investment sold through insurance companies. You can think of a life annuity as a life insurance policy in reverse — you pay the insurance company a large lump sum of cash and in return the insurance company pays you monthly premiums for life.

This can act as a form of retirement income after you leave the work force. Although life annuities can be a great option, here is some advice on the things you should look out for when it comes to life annuities.

Know the Difference between Immediate and Deferred Annuities

You should understand and watch out for the language in an annuity agreement. There is language that will signal if the policy is an immediate or deferred annuity. As its name implies, an immediate annuity means that you will obtain your fixed payments right away. There will be no delay in receiving your money. A deferred annuity is different. Continue Reading…

Weekly wrap: Futurepreneurs, seminar ripoffs and millennial homeowners

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businessman and businesswoman outdoorsWe’ve talked on the Hub before about older Boomerpreneurs (Baby Boomer entrepreneurs) but what about younger entrepreneurs? After all, Bill Gates and Steven Jobs made the leap into entrepreneurship while they were barely out of their teens. The Million Dollar Journey blog this week did a good piece on the Futurepreneur Canada programs. 

Beware however some entrepreneurs who may be getting rich on your desire to become an entrepreneur via real estate. Read this Boomer & Echo blog: Free Seminar — Learn How to Get Ripped Off.

And while we’re on the subject of real estate, check out the Broke Millennial’s recent blog on The Compromises Millennials Make to be Homeowners.

In Canada there has long been talk about expanding the CPP, or Canada Pension Plan. But most of the chatter in the United States has been about retrenching on social security benefits. Riding to the rescue is celebrity economist Paul Krugman, who argued this week in the New York Times the Case for Expanding Social Security.

But just in case you do fall short in saving for retirement, you can take heart from Jonathan Clements’ article in the Wall Street Journal this week, arguing Why you will need less money than you think for Retirement. Of course, we here at the Financial Independence Hub don’t much believe in the outdated concept of Retirement. We prefer the term Findependence, Continue Reading…

A murder mystery: who will kill the global economy?

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busch
Andrew Busch (Twitter.com)

By Jonathan Chevreau

One of the more entertaining financial presentations at this week’s BMO investing conference in Chicago was a keynote talk by author and broadcaster Andrew Busch on who killed the global economy. (I qualify this with the phrase financial presentations because Rick Mercer’s talk was also highly entertaining but could hardly qualify as being financial).

By contrast, Busch had worked at BMO Capital Markets for 22 years earlier in his career and grew up in Chicago. His financial research is available free here.

Billing his talk as a “Murder Mystery,” he ran movie clips from various Film Noirs to illustrate his points.

Among his suspects; the ECB’s Mario Draghi, Japan prime minister Shinzo Abe, China president Xi Jinping and the Federal Reserve’s Janet Yellen. Busch played the role of “Private Economic Investigator.”

Resemblance to Greece?

yellen
Suspect 1

Starting with Yellen, he submitted clue number 1 as the unemployment rate. With 3 million Americans underemployed, this fact shows up in sluggish wage increases so “we’re not seeing an acceleration in wealth gains so are not seeing inflation.” What jumps out from the latest job numbers is where they are located; 14 million Americans are employed in local government, another 2.7 million in the federal government and 5 million more in the states. Continue Reading…