Monthly Archives: March 2015

Financial Planning for young couples serious about their future together

Family with box moving into new home smilingBy Dane O’Leary

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

 When it comes to making huge decisions that amount to starting a new chapter in your life, financial planning is an essential precursor to such significant changes. In fact, it’s pretty irresponsible to, for example, buy a house before you’ve prepared yourself financially. Not only is it irresponsible, but in biting off more than you can chew you’re likely to choke; foreclosure isn’t just an empty threat your lender makes so you pay your bills on time.

In addition to buying a home, starting a family is another stage in your life that requires a thorough financial plan beforehand. Young adults who are ready to buy homes and start families are at an advantage because, by starting early, they have plenty of time to get their finances in order so huge life changes don’t lead to financial ruin.

However, many young adults don’t begin their preparation as early as they could despite experts who say it’s never too soon to get prepared. With that in mind, here are financial planning tips that will make buying a home and starting a family two of the best chapters in your life story.

Save, Save, Save Continue Reading…

Weekly wrap: Hope for those touched by Alzheimer’s, Hobbies that pay, taxes in Retirement

stillaliceBy Jonathan Chevreau

Families confronted with dementia may be encouraged by this New York Times article this week: Biogen reports its Alzheimer’s drug sharply slowed cognitive decline.

Fortunately, awareness of the scourge of dementia has been greatly raised by the success of the novel and then film, Still Alice, about a Harvard professor who suffers from early onset Alzheimer’s. The movie version debuted last autumn at the Toronto International Film Festival and Julianne Moore won an Academy Award for her performance.  Just before the Hub launched in November, our sister site ran this piece, entitled The downside of rising longevity: Dementia.

But on the plus side of extended longevity come the stories of those who found business or creative success only late in life. Check out this piece posted earlier this weekend in the Hub’s Encore Acts section: Hope for late-bloomer Boomers: Success as an Encore Act.

From the Good Financial Cents blog comes 16 hobbies that can actually make you money. We at the Hub have always thought it makes cents (sense) to turn an avocation into a vocation that pays. That’s the whole point of the Encore Acts section of the Hub.

At his Chicago Financial Planner blog, Roger Wohlner takes a look at Schwab’s entry into the robo-adviser space — Schwab Intelligent Portfolios: The Evolution of the Robo Adviser. Continue Reading…

Hope for late-bloomer Boomers: Success as an Encore Act

Retro Senior Man writerA  piece from the New York Times should be encouraging for any older readers interested in Encore Acts: Finding Success Well Past the Age of Wunderkind. Flagged as an article on “Retiring” it profiles several late bloomers who discovered creative or literacy success only after retiring from their day jobs.

It starts with a Queen’s resident, Lucille Shulklapper, who was a teacher, homemaker and mother of three and didn’t pursue a literary career until she retired in her late 50s. While she occasionally wrote a bit for herself, only when she retired did she start to write poems and short stories seriously. She published her first book of poetry in 1996, at age 60. Now 80, she has published four small editions, with a fifth in development. Continue Reading…

The Single Best Investment

singlebestBy Jonathan Chevreau

The Single Best Investment: Creating Wealth with Dividend Growth, is the title of a classic investment book first published in 2006 by Lowell Miller, who heads Miller/Howard Investments.

It came to my attention via Wes Moss, who I interviewed for an upcoming MoneySense column, whose book You Can Retire Sooner Than You Think we reviewed here at the Hub. I mentioned the book in passing last week in this MoneySense blog last week. That blog focused on asset allocation but provided a big hint about Miller’s philosophy: there’s no place for bonds in Lowell’s investment worldview.

The book’s first chapter sets the tone in its title: Say goodbye to bonds and hello to bouncing principal. Like many stock believers and bond haters, Miller takes it as a given that the investing environment generally includes inflation. Since “safe” investments like t-bills, bonds, money market mutual funds and CDs (Certificates of Deposits in his native USA; known as GICs in Canada) are all “poor investments because what they give is less than inflation takes away.”

Stocks are the only asset class likely to beat inflation in the long run, but the “price” of such an investment is volatility. Continue Reading…

Peter Grandich interviews Paul Philip about his conversion to DFA’s strategic indexing

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Peter Grandich

Peter Grandich is a well-known financial and economic commentator and author, based in New Jersey. His fascinating story of financial success and setbacks and gradual transition to more spiritual matters can be found in his recent book, Confessions of a Wall Street Whiz Kid. ( I provided a testimonial.)  You can also get a free PDF version. Find out more at his website at PeterGrandich.com.

Paul Philip is a Toronto-based financial planner and head of Financial Wealth Builders Securities. I’ve known both gentlemen for years and can say they are intimately familiar with the concept of Findependence.

In the Q&A below, Peter asks Paul about his (that is, Paul’s) conversion from a belief in active security selection to strategic indexing via the index mutual funds of Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA).

Yes, mutual funds, not ETFs. As you will see in the interview, the pair certainly sing the praises of this “best-kept secret” but I believe it’s in the best interests of consumers to learn about this firm and the advisors who are building practices sometimes exclusively around DFA index funds. I have in the past attended several all-day seminars presented by DFA Canada and personally own some of their funds (though not exclusively). Several other guest bloggers here at the Hub focus on DFA funds and Paul will be providing the Hub with a regular blog on these topics.  — Jonathan Chevreau

Peter:  Paul, what are your thoughts on investing in today’s uncertain times? Continue Reading…