Weekend Reading: Canadian Financial Summit Edition

The Canadian Financial Summit is back for its seventh year and I’m really excited about this year’s line-up of speakers. This year’s conference takes place from October 18th to 21st. You can grab your free ticket here.

A reminder for those of you new to the Summit – it’s a virtual (and free!) personal finance conference featuring nearly 50 Canadian money experts and a wide range of topics, such as:

• How to plan your own retirement at any age
• The Pension Paradox: Lump Sum vs Cash for Life (<– That’s me!)
• How to save money on taxes by optimizing your RRSP to RRIF transition
• Plan your personalized combination of a DIY portfolio alongside an annuity for a customized stream of retirement asset growth + monthly income.
• How to maximize the new FHSA (First Time Home Savings Account)
• How to adjust for high interest rates in your portfolio and day-to-day life
• How to efficiently transition your investing nest egg to a steady stream of retirement income
• What Canadian real estate investments looks like in 2023
• How to deal with inflation on your bills and in your investment portfolio
• The best Canadian personal finance books of all time!
• When to take your OAS and CPP
• Travel for free with Canada’s loyalty rewards programs

Besides hearing your favourite personal finance blogger discuss the ins and outs of defined benefit and defined contribution pensions, you’ll also hear from Globe & Mail columnist Rob Carrick, advice-only planner Jason Heath, former long-time Toronto Star columnist Ellen Roseman, My Own Advisor blogger Mark Seed, and so many more.

But I think the highlight of the conference will be Dr. Preet Banerjee presenting his research on the value of financial advice to Canadian households. For too long, the financial advice industry has tried to quantify the value with industry funded studies proclaiming something like advised households are 2.73x wealthier than non-advised households. Newsflash: wealthy people seek financial advice. The advice may be valuable, but it didn’t make them wealthy in the first place.

I got a sneak peek at Dr. Banerjee’s research at a recent conference and while I won’t spoil the presentation I will say the most interesting finding was that households with a financial plan (regardless of their primary channel of advice) are better off than households without a financial plan. Interesting!

Get your free ticket to the Canadian Financial Summit here and check out the amazing line-up of speakers over this three-day virtual conference.

This Week’s Recap:

I had the pleasure of attending the IAFP Symposium in Edmonton last week and was invited to speak on a panel about using online marketing to grow your advisory business. Having written here (and around the web) for nearly 15 years, I figured I had something useful to say on the topic. Here’s a nice recap of the panel discussion.

This week I wrote about singles and the challenges they face when it comes to home ownership.

Last week I explained how to trick your lizard brain into saving more money.

Next week I’ll be a guest on the Money Feels podcast with Alyssa Davies and Bridget Casey. Watch (listen?) for that on Thursday.

Weekend Reading:

Advice-only financial planner Jason Evans looks at three retirement planning obstacles to overcome.

Here’s Tim Cestnick with two smart RRIF strategies to consider as part of your estate planning (subs).

Why clients with large RRSPs and RRIFs might benefit from earlier withdrawals to help smooth out income over their lifetime.

Rob Carrick shares a guide to starting CPP and OAS benefits when you retire, and says – yes, it’s on you to do that.

This podcast is worth your time: The psychology of retirement spending and prioritizing peace of mind with Christine Benz.

Of Dollars and Data blogger Nick Maggiulli on the never ending “then”:

“The problem with living in the future is that you tend to overlook the present. You can’t fully enjoy something when you are always thinking about what’s next.”

Morgan Housel says that money can bring happiness but it also brings complexity, and complexity can quickly lead to unhappiness.

The Plain Bagel YouTube channel explains the Canadian housing crisis:

PWL Capital’s Ben Felix answers a question on many people’s minds: why invest in stocks when you can get better interest with HISA?

Here are 12 must-see charts and themes that tell the current story in markets and investing.

A Wealth of Common Sense blogger Ben Carlson explains how investors can outperform the pros.

Is that $5 coffee actually free? How TikTok’s ‘girl math’ trend is changing the online money conversation.

Get yourself a Globe & Mail subscription just for Fred Vettese’s excellent Charting Retirement series. His latest chart looks at the best place to retire in Canada, income-wise (subs). Let’s just say it gets better as you go east to west.

Have a great weekend, everyone!