Retiring in this new financial world order requires a new approach to financial planning. An old world plan in the new world is a recipe for disaster.
Life expectancy for Canadians has increased steadily; this is a good thing. A Canadian male born in 1930 had a life expectancy at birth of 60 years; a female, [...]

Your financial planner doesn’t want you to know this: investments are just financial products.  The financial industry has been successful in convincing you that you’re ‘investing’ when you’ve just been buying products.
A mutual fund is a classic example of a financial product.  Like other products, mutual funds are manufactured and then distributed. They aren’t made [...]

I think the most overlooked and underrated strategy for funding retirement is the Systematic Withdrawal Plan (SWP).  If done right, a SWP is an excellent tax planning tool and can provide loads of tax efficient cash flow.  Not only is a SWP a great way to slash your retirement tax bill, but it can help [...]

Ever heard of a DRIP?  Chances are you didn’t hear about it from your advisor.  This is a subject that investment advisors and financial planners don’t want to discuss.  They’re worried that if you find out about Dividend Re-Investment Plans, they’ll lose business.
A dividend re-investment plan or a DRIP is a plan that allows you [...]

Here’s a question for you.  If you were retiring tomorrow, what would you rather have: $1 million in your RRSP, or $1 million in your non-registered account?
Hopefully you picked the $1 million in your non-registered account.
Ideally, when you retire you want all of your money to be non-RRSP money.   Every dollar you take out [...]

In general, your financial advisor’s income increases when the value of your account increases. Said another way, the more money an advisor manages the more money he makes.  Often, financial advisors use this fact in their sales routine; “I have a vested interest in managing your account properly.  I am motivated to make it grow. [...]

Everyone who’s approaching retirement asks this question. It’s a question without a simple answer because it depends on several variables.
How much tax you pay. The more tax you pay, the bigger your nest egg needs to be. The less tax your retirement cash flow attracts, the smaller your retirement nest egg can be. Accounts like [...]

Early in my career I made a habit of asking the best-producing advisors I met the secrets to their success. One guy was all too happy to share his tactics with me, and I’m all too happy to be sharing them with you.
I’ll call him Shawn.
What Shawn told me to do was invent a fake [...]

Your investment advisor is trained to charge his clients as much as he can without letting them walk away. There is a big difference between what he charges some clients and what he charges others. Obviously, the bigger client you are the better deal you can command, but all clients have at least some bargaining [...]

Have you ever had the feeling you should sell your investments and hold cash in your investment accounts? Have you ever actually done it? Ever wished you had?
Most people don’t move to cash, or money-market funds, even though they really want to do so. Too often their advisor talks them out of it. I’ll bet [...]