When Canadians think about retirement, one recurring complaint is that “RRSPs aren’t fair.” The argument goes like this: you get a tax deduction when you contribute, and your savings grow tax-deferred, but then you’re forced to pay full tax when you take money out of...
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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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Over 25 years ago, I first learned about options trading. I never got around to implementing any such strategies for my accounts, but unexpectedly, I found myself in the investment industry, initially serving U.S. investors at a discount brokerage that had a contact centre here...
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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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When Life Hits Harder Than Expected At age 25, I was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease. Three decades later, I started peritoneal dialysis, followed by a kidney transplant from a living donor at age 57. In between, I underwent surgeries for my gall bladder (2007) and...
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During my time in the discount brokerage world, I encountered individuals whose investment accounts seemed to function more like slot machines or roulette wheels. They would deposit money and bet it all on a single stock, implement aggressive options strategies, or day trade in and...
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Allow me to introduce Daniel—a 32-year-old single man living in Calgary, earning $105,000 per year. He contributes regularly to his TFSA and personal RRSP, and also to a group RRSP through his employer, who matches his contributions via a Deferred Profit Sharing Plan (DPSP). Daniel...
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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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My first full-time job did not have any benefits. I am aware that in certain careers, a lack of an employer-sponsored retirement saving benefit is the norm, whether a Defined Benefit pension, plan, Defined Contribution pension plan, Group RRSP, or Deferred Profit-Sharing Plan. Nevertheless, for...
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A New Option, or a New Distraction? Periodically, investors are introduced to new asset classes with the promise of improving their portfolios. Lately, “alternatives” and “commodities” have become buzzwords in the world of investment products, sometimes packaged as part of a fund’s “expanded opportunity set,” or...
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