Building Wealth

For the first 30 or so years of working, saving and investing, you’ll be first in the mode of getting out of the hole (paying down debt), and then building your net worth (that’s wealth accumulation.). But don’t forget, wealth accumulation isn’t the ultimate goal. Decumulation is! (a separate category here at the Hub).

3 predictions for the future Retirement landscape

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By Sia Hasan

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

Retirement should be a time everyone looks forward to embracing. Theoretically, everything becomes easier in time. A retiree doesn’t need to deal with all the pressures of a stressful full-time job. Days can be spent doing more of the things the retiree enjoys. Such imagery, however, may only reflect the most idealized version of retirement years. Relaxation in retirement remains heavily dependent on how much money has been saved for those golden years.

Saving for retirement has to be about more than just putting a set percentage of income away. Careful thinking and planning are required to make sure retirement assets become adequate enough to cover leisure and necessary expenses. The changing future landscape of retirement further necessitates better planning.

Longer Life Spans and Retirement Savings

Increased life spans definitely impact the way people save for retirement. Thanks to insights into healthier living and great strides in healthcare, a larger percentage of people live much longer. Living to the age of 100 may even be possible for a significant number of people. Better retirement planning definitely works to the benefit of someone who lives a very long life.

Working during early Retirement years

Upon retiring at age 70, maybe it would be wise to look for another job. Working a full-time job might not be necessary, but earning a small stream of income from a part-time job could prove very helpful. $10,000 earned from a part-time job covers $10,000 worth of expenses. Working a part-time job until age 75 leads to $50,000 in income. Earning additional money eliminates the need withdrawing an equitable amount of funds from a savings account or social security deposits.

Money saved may draw more interest and be set aside for use during very elder years. After looking at things from this perspective, making plans for a retirement job becomes an important priority.

Examine Annuity Income

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Strapped for cash after holidays? How to make the RRSP deadline with no new money

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How to beat the March 1st RRSP deadline without having to come up with new money is the subject of my latest MoneySense Retired Money column. You can access it by clicking on the highlighted headline: How to ‘find’ cash for your RRSP contribution.

As with the previous column involving doing the same thing for TFSAs, this involves a tricky procedure known as “transfers-in-kind,” which means you need some investments in your non-registered portfolio to pull it off. There can be tax pitfalls so you need to find investments that haven’t greatly appreciated in value, or find offsetting losers without falling afoul of the CRA’s superficial loss rules.

Seniors in particular likely have a good amount of money sitting in “open” or non-registered investment accounts, which means any securities can be “transferred in kind” to your RRSP, thereby generating the required receipt to generate a tax refund come tax filing time in April.

You don’t have to be a senior of course: any Canadian of any age can transfer-in-kind securities from their open accounts to their RRSPs; it’s just that many younger folks may not have a lot of money housed in non-registered accounts. Most tend to maximize the RRSP first and since 2009, the TFSA.

But beware the RRSP that gets “too big”

Of course, the kind of pre-retirees who read this column may want to consider whether their RRSP might become “too big” and eventually put you in a higher tax bracket once you start to RRIF after age 71. I looked at this “nice problem to have” in an FP column last May.

Continue Reading…

RRSP Strategies for 2018

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“When you retire, think and act as if you were stil working. When you’re still working, think and act a bit as if you were already retired.”
— Author Unknown

First, a few words about my overall approach: “I recommend growing the RRSP wisely and sensibly over the long haul. It delivers very well during the decades of retirement income needs. My 2018 strategies offer vital RRSP planning ideas for everyone.”

RRSPs have grown substantially, many exceeding values of $500,000 to $1,000,000 for a family unit. Also consider that various investors own the RRSP’s financial cousin, a flavour of the Locked-In Retirement Account (LIRA). Such a plan is typically created when the commuted value of an employer pension is transferred to a locked-in account. LIRA values can easily range from $200,000 to $400,000. Although, RRSP deposits cannot be made to a LIRA, the account needs to be invested alongside the rest of the nest egg.

Clear understanding of the RRSP regime is essential to guide the multi-year planning marathon.

RRSPs really fit two camps of investors like a glove: those without employer pension plans and the self-employed.

Some investors still shun RRSP deposits. However, my top reason for pursuing the RRSP continues to be long-term, tax-deferred investment growth. It means no income tax is paid until draws are made from the RRSP. This allows the plan to grow for years, often decades.

Stay focused on how the RRSP fits into your total game plan. The power of tax-deferred compounding really delivers. Keep your RRSP mission simple and treat it as a building block. Take every step that improves the money outlasting the family requirements.

I summarize the vital RRSP planning areas:

1.) Closing 2017

Your 2017 RRSP limit is 18% of your 2016 “earned income”, to a maximum of $26,010. This sum is reduced by your pension adjustment from the 2016 employment slip. The allowable RRSP contribution room includes carry-forwards from previous years.

RRSP deposits made by March 01, 2018 can be deducted in your 2017 income tax filing. There is no reason to wait until the last minute where funds are available. Your 2016 Canada Revenue notice of assessment (NOA) outlines the 2017 RRSP room. Continue Reading…

3 rookie mistakes that seasoned investors still make

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By Neville Joanes

(Sponsor Content)

We’ve all been enjoying the bull market. But getting a historically respectable 6 per cent return, or even doubling it, can feel underwhelming when the economy is roaring ahead and the Nasdaq has gone up 30 per cent.  From what I see, the difference between the big winners and the also-ran-investors often comes down to whether or not they let their biases cloud their judgement. Even experienced investors are not immune.

It’s such a big problem that an entire field of study has sprouted out of this: behavioral economics. Economist Richard Thaler won a Nobel prize for his work looking at how these biases operate among humans in a supposedly rational market.

Here’s a roundup of the worst mistakes I see again and again from DIY investors (which is why a lot of these people would be better off with a set-it-and-forget-it strategy).

Running with the herd

If you want an above-average return, then don’t rush into what the crowd is doing.

Probably the most outrageous example of this mistake is to be found in the irrational exuberance over Bitcoin. Just $1,000 worth of Bitcoin from a few years ago would be over $1 million today. If you threw caution to the wind and invested in this years ago, then you have certainly seen the kind of ROI that Wall Street hedge fund managers can only dream of. But all those gains are in the past, to the benefit of the early adopters.

The vast majority of investors have arrived late to this party. Most of the large gains have already been captured. And while there may be more growth yet to come, experts say that Bitcoin eventually seems destined to repeat its bust cycles of 2011 and 2014. The herd is about to race off a cliff. Usually, by the time your neighbor next door is jumping on the bandwagon, it’s already past time to get off.

Recency bias

We all know that past performance is no guarantee of future returns. And yet, it is basically human nature to ignore that knowledge.

In life, recency bias is actually a useful rule of thumb a lot of the time. Your friend who always shows up late will show up late again. The restaurant you liked years ago, but whose quality keeps declining will continue to suck, in new and intolerable ways.

For investing, recency bias can really do harm. We see a line graph showing a steadily-rising return, like with the Nasdaq: well, why wouldn’t that trend continue? Because it can’t. Over time, as an asset rises in value, we can expect it to fall back down to the mean.

Continue Reading…

4 ways to avoid a financial crisis before it happens

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By Lidia Staron

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

Do you want to avoid a financial crisis before it happens? Everyone does, but few are willing to take the essential steps. You might have heard rumors of a significant economic crisis just looming around the corner. Whether it happens at a personal or national level, it feels good to know that you have done something to avoid it or at least soften its impact in your life.

In this post, let us take a look at some of the most effective ways to avoid a financial crisis before it happens:

1.) Save before you spend

Benjamin Franklin said “a penny saved is a penny earned.” Nothing can be truer than that! Every time you spend on something, you take out cash from your pocket. It decreases your wealth. Spending on unnecessary things may mean that you could have used precious resources for other things.

Now, it doesn’t mean that enjoying the fruits of your labor and buying things that you love are bad things. The point is that sometimes you just have to make small sacrifices today to enjoy great rewards in the future. And that’s precisely what saving can do for you.

The best way to avoid a financial crisis is as simple as saving a penny a day. You can then gradually increase your savings each month. It may sound small at first, but great things start from little things. The key here is consistency. Just keep on saving, and you will soon see how it can help you become financially secure.

2.) Make a Budget

It’s helpful to be reminded of this adage, “If you failed to plan, you planned to fail.” Budgeting is a form of planning for the future. Some people mistakenly thought that they could go on with their lives without a budget. Almost always, without fail, those who don’t have a budget are the same people who are in a financial strait.

Making a budget does not have to be complicated. It only takes a few minutes. Decide where your money goes and ensure that you track every penny from your wallet. If you made a personal loan online, then make it a point to pay off debt first as much as possible before spending on things that are just optional. Continue Reading…