Weekend Reading: Master Class In Retirement Planning Edition
Fred Vettese is a leading expert in retirement planning and his books, which include The Essential Retirement Guide and Retirement Income for Life, are must reads for retired or soon-to-be retired Canadians. The newly updated second edition of Retirement Income for Life will be released on October 20, 2020. The Rational Reminder podcast had Mr.…
Read MoreWeekend Reading: Cheap Mortgage Rates Edition
It’s no secret that mortgage rates have been incredibly low for an incredibly long time. Even when we think rates couldn’t possibly go lower, a lender tests the waters with another record-low promotion. This time it’s HSBC with an unprecedented 5-year fixed mortgage rate of 1.99%. But as mortgage broker Dave Larock points out, there’s…
Read MoreWeekend Reading: What’s Next For Travel Edition
It’s hard to believe that just three months ago we were preparing to travel to Italy. It was one of several trips we had planned for 2020, including a return to the U.K. in July and a trip to Victoria to close out the summer. Then COVID-19 hit and our plans quickly changed. Italy was…
Read MoreHow (And When) To Rebalance Your Portfolio
Setting up the initial asset allocation for your investment portfolio is fairly straightforward. The challenge is knowing how and when to rebalance your portfolio. Stock and bond prices move up and down, and you periodically add new money – all of which can throw off your initial targets. Let’s say you’re an index investor like…
Read MoreWeekend Reading: Tighter Mortgage Rules Edition
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) made headlines last week when its housing market outlook predicted that national housing prices would fall 9-18% over the coming months due to the coronavirus crisis. This week, Canada’s largest default insurer took significant steps to change its underwriting policies for insured mortgages. The following changes, which take effect…
Read MoreTackling Changes To Your Retirement Income Plan
Spending money is easy. Saving and investing is supposed to be the difficult part. But there’s a reason why Nobel laureate William Sharpe called “decumulation”, or spending down your retirement savings, the nastiest, hardest problem in finance. Indeed, retirement planning would be easy if we knew the following information in advance: Future market returns and…
Read MoreWeekend Reading: Housing Market Crash Edition
Will we see a housing market crash in 2020 and beyond? The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) published its housing market outlook this week and, well, their forecast for home sales and prices look pretty bleak. Housing starts are expected to see a decline of between 51% to 75%, and not begin to recover…
Read MoreWeekend Reading: Stock Market Is Not The Economy Edition
Stock markets around the world continue to climb higher after bottoming out on March 23. In what seems like ages ago, markets fell harder and faster than ever before as the world grappled with a global pandemic and stay-at-home orders. The TSX, as represented by iShares XIU, fell more than 32%, while the S&P 500…
Read MoreWeekend Reading: Big Financial Mistakes Edition
When it comes to money, no one has it completely figured out. We can learn a lot from our own failures and from the mistakes of others. Stories like the one shared by Kind Wealth founder David O’Leary – who filed for bankruptcy at age 25 – highlight the fact that no matter who we…
Read MoreMoney Bag: Bonds Behaving Badly, Investing USD, and More
Welcome to the Money Bag, where I answer questions and address comments from readers on a wide range of money topics, myths, and perceptions about money. No question is off limits, so hit me up in the comments section or send me an email about any money topic that’s on your mind. This edition of the Money Bag…
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