I. Introduction A. The RRIF transition milestone The conversion of your Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) to a Registered Retirement Income Fund (RRIF), which must occur not later than the year you turn 71, but can take place earlier, is a major retirement milestone. One of the notable...
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I came across a recent CTV News Consumer Alert article/video clip about taxes on the estate when the bulk of the deceased’s assets were held in a Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) and a principal residence that had been owned as a secondary property for...
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Stewardship is a Luxury For many Canadians earning minimum wage, stewardship feels like a luxury word. It belongs to the vocabulary of the wealthy, people with disposable income, not those just trying to get through the month. Imagine a single parent working multiple part-time jobs without benefits,...
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As summer winds down, many Canadian families are preparing their children for post-secondary education. For parents like Lisa and Jason, both 50 years old and living in Red Deer, Alberta, this means more than just shopping for residence supplies. It also means figuring out how...
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The Paradox of Vacation School is out and summer is here. When I was a child, that often meant a road trip from my hometown of Chilliwack, BC, out to Manitoba, visiting relatives in Winnipeg and small communities in the south like Grunthal and Arnaud. In...
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Let’s imagine a married couple, James and Sandra, both age 65, recently retired, and living in Winnipeg. They own a mortgage-free home worth about $500,000. Their financial assets are currently worth about $1.7 million with 25% in RRSPs, 15% in TFSAs, and 60% in a jointly...
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You may have heard that the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) has proposed the introduction of the “Canada First TFSA Top-Up,” a plan to allow Canadians to contribute an extra $5,000 in their Tax-Free Savings Accounts (TFSAs), as long as the amount qualifies as a...
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The image above, posted on Flickr, is of a Hina Matsuri display, the Doll Festival, held in Japan on March 3 every year. On this day, families with girls wish their daughters a successful and happy life. March 3, 2025 also happens to be the...
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The Lure of the Tax-Free Millionaire Dream Larry MacDonald of The Globe and Mail has highlighted remarkable success stories of investors turning their Tax-Free Savings Accounts (TFSAs) into million-dollar windfalls. With $102,000 in cumulative TFSA contribution room as of January 1, 2025 (for those eligible since...
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The Problem Nobody Sees Nearly 200,000 pension plan members in Ontario alone are “missing,” leaving $3.6 billion in unclaimed assets, according to a report from the National Institute on Ageing.* Who are these “missing pension plan members”? They are individuals entitled to pension benefits but disconnected from...
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