Devote a few minutes to tax planning before the holiday celebrations begin. Many strategies take a few days to process so doing them now will ensure that you won’t miss out on the December 31st deadlines. 

This article explains the commonly-held notion that retirees who withdraw the equivalent of 4% of the portfolio in the first year of retirement and then adjust this dollar amount for inflation each year would enjoy a 30 year retirement without running out of funds. 

The financial planning industry has evolved since I began in it 20+ years ago.  Initially, we referred to “goals-based” planning to help clients to articulate what they want their money to do for them.  Instead of “retiring comfortably” we helped clients to describe “retiring with an annual lifestyle costing $50,000 per year in today’s dollars”. 

As a student of financial behaviour for over 20 years, I am always impressed with a phenomenon that can be expressed succinctly and explains our motivations broadly.  This article describes the Diderot Effect – the way in which one purchase can beget another. 

Investors often switch advisors during a market downturn because they are disappointed in their return on investment and believe that they could do better elsewhere.  But research shows that staying invested – rather than liquidating your portfolio and starting all over again – is necessary to achieve the long-term performance that is required to support your retirement goals.  Sounds like a pretty clear case of FOMO to me. 

I am often invited to deliver seminars/webinars to corporate groups.  Some call them “Lunch and Learns” others request half-day workshops.  The feedback from participants has always supported this article’s thesis: that “the tangible impact on employees of financial education can be life-changing”. 

Financial resilience is the most-important thing that I can impart to a client.  Over time, that resilience can come in the form of protection against risk, coaching through market downfalls and tax-efficient harvesting of accumulated wealth. 

The core of my work as a financial planner has never been to show you dramatic projections of the amount of tax you will save or the legacy that you can leave to your children.

Projecting the costs of goods and services is one of the most critical pieces to understanding the lifestyle that your wealth can support. This article discusses a trend that is important to keep in mind in light of the attention recently paid to inflation numbers.

The June edition of the UPotential webinar series entitled “Marriage Vows, Instead of Money Woes” discussed some of the reasons why money breaks up so many relationships and offers some suggestions to help couples establish a good money partnership or repair a poor one.