The New Kid on the Block…the Variable Annuity! The variable annuity of commonly referred to as a GMWB is on the horizon. In June 2006, I attended the Morningstar Investment Conference, which focused on “Retirement Income Planning”. One well-known speaker, Moshe Milevsky, introduced the concept in retirement planning of not just how to generate retirement […]
I had a great question from a client who recently asked “When I convert my RRSP to a RRIF, how much money must I withdraw each year?”. That’s a great question, so I thought I would explain RRSP and RRIF withdrawals and the basic rules. You can make a withdrawal for any amount, up to […]
Service Canada – Canadian Retirement Income Calculator With RRSP season having just ended and tax season ramping up, the last thing on most people’s minds right now is planning for their retirement. Whether you do your own investing on-line, use your local bank, broker, or a financial planner do you know your “Number”? Experience shows […]
Yard Sales and Investment Policy Statements We’re well into yard sale season. We’ve cleaned out the garage, closets and under the beds. As the saying goes “If you can’t use it, lose it!” Maybe it’s time for a portfolio clean up as well. A good place to start is the Investment Policy Statement or IPS. […]
Build Your Retirement Savings Faster with an Individual Pension Plan (IPP) The contributions to an IPP are graduated by age, and as such as the individual grows older, their contributions increases by a rate of 7.5% per year unlike the RRSPs fixed maximum of $14,500. For example an individual who is earning $100,000 per year […]
Smoke and Mirrors: Buying a New Car In general, I keep my vehicles about 10 years, so it’s been awhile since I have been in this game. Some things have changed but the overall process is the same. Last time, I actually researched what vehicle I wanted by test-driving the selected models to eliminate the […]
Taking Care of Business: Buy-Sell Funding Business owners face and evaluate risk every day. One tool to consider using is a risk matrix as shown below. The key point is to make sure that your highly critical, low probability risks are minimized i.e. moving from point A to point B. Probability Risk Severity High Medium […]
Private Pension Crisis? So what is an unfunded liability? It’s the amount by which the liabilities of the pension plan exceed assets in the plan, at a given date. What are some of the factors that affect this unfunded liability and how does it occur? 1. The company is not profitable enough to keep up the […]