My Initial Thoughts Way back in the 1980s, when I was younger … and the earth was still cooling … inflation was running hot. I had a small student loan at the time, about $5,000 as I recall. The interest rate on that loan was 13%....
Read More“But Statman says for some people that’s like telling an Orthodox Jew he should save money by buying cheaper cuts of pork and donate the extra money to the synagogue.” – Dan Bortolotti referring to Meir Statman in “More on socially responsible index investing.” This reference...
Read More
In my previous blog post, I introduced a fictitious client, Debra, who is about to retire. As you may recall, Debra is single, without children, and is about to turn 65. She is eligible for the maximum Canada Pension Plan (CPP), which is $14,445 per...
Read More
Money In and Money Out When I worked for the discount brokerage division of a major Canadian bank, I learned that the investment side of banking was referred to as “Money In.” That is, money came into the bank through investments in Guaranteed Investment Certificates (GICs)...
Read MoreAfter years of working at minimum wage retail jobs without benefits, Donald, age 59, is wondering what his strategy should be for retirement. He knows that he can begin taking the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) as early as next year, when he turns 60, but...
Read MoreMutual Funds Often Have a Cost Disadvantage In my previous post, I wrote about several advantages of investing with mutual funds. That post invited a few comments about the costs of mutual funds outweighing the behavioural advantages. Although there are a relatively few mutual funds that...
Read More
Mutual funds do not get a lot of love, even though they hold the lion’s share of retail investors’ assets in Canada. If you are like me and often peruse personal finance pages of the major Canadian newspapers (or more accurately, their websites), you will...
Read More
Employed: Defined Contribution Registered Pension Plan Let’s suppose the following scenario: You are in your mid-40s and have worked for one employer for the entirety of your working career. Throughout, your employer had provided its employees a defined contribution registered pension plan which was based on...
Read MoreProbating a will sounds uncomfortable, doesn't it? Kind of like the legal equivalent of a doctor giving you a thorough physical exam… Perhaps there is something to that analogy. Although simple, small estates with a single heir may not require probating, the probate process has value...
Read MoreOne of the insights from behavioural finance is that we all benefit from systematizing and automating our financial behaviour. Set up your bill payments to come out of your bank account automatically, and you will never worry about missing your payments again. Sign up for...
Read More