Around the Blogosphere

It seems like every year around this time I get a strange sense of déjà vu. This past March, markets fell sharply after the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran and the conflict escalated, and Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation, choking off a huge share of the world’s oil and…

They say sunlight is the best disinfectant. Well, that light is about to shine a whole lot brighter on investment fees. Starting in early 2027, Canadian investors will see the total cost of owning their investments in a way they never have before. For years, the fees you pay to own mutual funds, ETFs, and…

During my recent interview with Dave Chilton on The Wealthy Barber podcast, we got into a question I hear often: when’s the right time to start working with a financial planner on retirement? Our answer wasn’t 65, it was roughly 10 years before you plan to retire. Of course, you can also be too far…

I work with a lot of clients who have done everything right. They saved diligently throughout their careers, paid off their mortgage, maxed out their registered accounts, and arrived at retirement with more money than they ever expected to have. And yet they’re worried. Not about whether they can afford to retire – they clearly…

I read a Globe and Mail piece by RBC senior portfolio manager Nancy Woods this week, one of those “investing basics” explainers aimed at people just getting started. The hook was a herd-of-cows analogy: your money is the herd, dividends are the milk, price appreciation is the baby cows (the herd growing over time). The…

One of the top questions I hear from soon-to-be-retired clients is some version of: “What do I do about health coverage when I leave my employer plan?” The anxiety is real. For decades, benefits were just… there. Dental cleanings, prescriptions, massage, physio – it felt like free money. Now they’re staring down retirement wondering how…

If you contribute regularly to your TFSA you already know this, but it’s worth repeating. Your My CRA Account is not a live tracker of your TFSA contribution room. In fact, it can be frustratingly slow to update. The reason is straightforward. Financial institutions have until the end of February each year to report your…

Every time markets get shaky I get some version of the same message. “Hey, are we getting nervous about VEQT? Anything we should be doing differently, or just let it ride?” It’s a fair question. Market declines and a barrage of bad news can certainly make some investors uncomfortable. But it also reveals something important.…

One of the strangest things about retirement is that it’s often not about whether you’ll have enough money to last a lifetime, but whether you’ll feel comfortable spending it. Economists call this the retirement consumption puzzle. In theory, retirees should draw down their savings over time and enjoy the money they spent decades accumulating. In…

Beth came to me with questions about her mother Susan’s finances. Susan is 80 and widowed. She lives in a retirement home and spends about $60,000 per year after tax. Her health is declining and she’s not expected to live beyond age 85. After her husband passed away, she now has $1.2 million in a…