Posts by Robb Engen

You might not have a hot clue how much you plan to spend in retirement, especially if those days are still a decade or further away. Even those nearing retirement may not have a good sense of their desired retirement spending amount. A good rule of thumb is that you’ll likely want to enjoy the…

Some readers were appalled to learn that my wife and I completely drained our TFSAs in 2022 to fund a larger down payment on our new house. Okay, maybe not appalled – but it did raise a few eyebrows. Remember, inflation was running hot and interest rates started to rise in March of that year.…

Our net worth crossed the million-dollar mark at the end of 2020, but that included about $300,000 in home equity. This week I noticed the total amount we had invested across our RRSPs, corporate account, RESPs, and my LIRA had surpassed the $1M threshold for the first time. We’re managing a million dollar portfolio! RRSP…

The federal government unveiled its 2024 federal budget with a proposed $53B in new spending over five years, including an ambitious $8.5B plan to tackle the housing crisis. The feds also proposed an increase to the capital gains inclusion rate, from 50% to 66% on gains in excess of $250,000 (personally) and from 50% to…

When is the best time of year to retire? For retirement projections 10-20 years out we might use a random date like your birthday, your pension’s normal retirement date, or the end of the year. Once you get closer to retirement, the details matter. For instance, you might consider timing your retirement date just after…

“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” – John Maynard Keynes (maybe) As a long-time mortgage holder, I’ve been adamant about a mortgage renewal strategy that goes something like this: Go variable when the 5-year variable rate is offered at a steep discount off of prime rate (prime minus…

Asset allocation ETFs revolutionized investing for do-it-yourself investors when they were first introduced by Vanguard in 2018. Prior to the existence of these multi-asset ETFs, passive investors might have opted to follow one of the Canadian Couch Potato’s model portfolios to build their own multi-ETF portfolio (remember the 10-ETF Über-Tuber portfolio?).  That’s why I say…

Author Fred Schwed gave us his cynical take-down of Wall Street back in 1940 with the hilariously written, Where Are the Customers’ Yachts?. The book amazingly still holds up today in a world where investment advisors get rich while their customers, well, not so much. “The title refers to a story about a visitor to…