Silver Tsunami: Why the Best Business Transitions involve a Warm Hand

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By Jeff Johnstone, National Bank Financial Wealth Management

Special to Financial Independence Hub

In my world, financial planning is a lot like building a home. You can spend decades refining the interior — growing revenue, managing cash flow, building something you are proud of — but without a strong foundation, the entire structure remains vulnerable.  For the roughly 500,000 small business owners across Ontario, that foundation isn’t only  the balance sheet; it’s a clear, well-structured succession plan.

 We’re standing on the edge of what many call a “silver tsunami.” By 2030, more than one in five Ontarians will be 65 or older. It represents one of the largest transfers of leadership and wealth in history. Today, nearly 75% of business owners are planning to exit within the next decade. For founders, that creates a new reality because it’s no longer about finding just a buyer, it’s about being a business worth finding and buying. Yet while many expect to exit, few have a clear plan for what happens next.

 When entrepreneurs sit down with us, three themes tend to surface:

  • Concentration risk — the majority of their net worth is tied to a single asset: the business
  • Tax complexity — not whether tax will be paid, but how much can be preserved
  • Uncertainty — stepping away is not just financial, but deeply personal

 These challenges are all interconnected. For incorporated business owners, personal and corporate wealth need to be aligned: linking how value is created inside the business with how wealth is ultimately realized outside of it. The goal isn’t  to extract value at the end, but to translate it gradually into long-term financial independence.  Without that bridge, the business risks becoming not a means to an end, but the end itself.

Founders often underestimate Timing

 One of the biggest misconceptions we see is timing. Many founders believe they can decide to sell and complete the process within six months. When in reality, a successful, high-value transition rarely follows a short-term timeline. The average timeline is closer to five years from initial planning to final sale. Understanding this matters because, if you wait until you’re ready to exit — or until you’re burned out — and believe it can be all closed quickly, you’ve already lost leverage and, in many cases, left value on the table. Buyers don’t just assess financial performance; they assess risk. A business heavily dependent on its founder carries a very different profile than one that can operate independently.

 The earlier you start, the more control you have. That’s the takeaway here.  Early planning changes what buyers see. It creates time to strengthen management, reduce key-person risk, and professionalize operations. It also allows for what I often describe as a “financial clean-up”—organizing financials, addressing shareholder loans, and ensuring the business can run without you at the center.  Because ultimately, it’s about being profitable, as well as it’s being sellable.

 One of the  most complex parts of succession is rarely financial, and  happens outside the boardroom and round the dinner table.  We call this “dinner table math,”  when assumptions are made but haven’t (or rarely) been discussed. For example, parents may assume the children will take over the business, but they do not want to. Yet,  the children may feel obligated to, even if their interests lie elsewhere. Beneath it all are unspoken expectations about what feels fair.

Where many transitions begin to unravel

 This is where many transitions begin to unravel. Nearly 70% fail because of breakdowns in communication and trust, versus market conditions. For example, in one case we had one family assume the business would pass to the next generation. Through structured conversations, it became clear that while the children respected what had been built, none of the kids wanted to run it. That honesty  was difficult, but the clarity was necessary.  It opened the door to a different path that was  focused on a structured sale to an external buyer, alongside a plan to distribute proceeds in a way that felt fair and transparent. Just as importantly, it preserved the family relationships.

 These are not decisions founders should navigate alone. With the right advisory team — wealth advisors, accountants and legal professionals — we can help create space for better conversations and more thoughtful decisions.  In our experience, the best work happens alongside a dedicated M&A and investment banking team who can help deliver a more coordinated approach. Preparation becomes more intentional, buyer selection more strategic and outcomes — across valuation, structure, and legacy — more aligned with what matters most. Continue Reading…

Retired Money: FIRE Bloggers starting Early Retirement in their 50s and even 40s

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My latest MoneySense Retired Money column looks at a handful of FIRE bloggers who should be familiar to readers of this site, Findependence Hub: notably Mark Seed of myownadvisor and Bob Lai of Tawcan.

As you can see by clicking on the column headline, How are FIRE adherents making out?, Seed recently announced he has reached his Financial Independence in his early 50s. Bob Lai, meanwhile, is still working in his 40s but blogged on how he hopes to reach Findependence before 2030.

The MoneySense column also updates the status of veteran personal finance columnist Rob Carrick, who ended full-time employment at the Globe & Mail last year, the subject of an earlier Retired Money column.  And we mention a good blog by The Retirement Manifesto’s Fritz Gilbert about the 12 Good Years between age 60 and 72. As I ironically close the column with, it seems I have just used up my own 12 good years!

The real focus of the MoneySense column is however Mark Seed, just as it was Carrick last summer. In both cases, we exchanged views in Zoom or GoogleMeets over the course of an hour or so.

By now, it’s hardly necessary to remind readers that the FIRE acronym stands for Financial Independence Retire Early, as the image above  illustrates.

Note that our FIRE subjects in the column span four decades: Lai his 40s, Seed his 50s, Carrick his 60s and I am in my 70s, evidently still running this website and writing for MoneySense, a former employer.

The end of Salaried Employment does not mean no more Working

The observant reader will note that none of the bloggers mentioned here have actually begun the traditional “Full-Stop Retirement.” When FIRE proponents describe Early Retirement, they usually mean leaving the comfort of full-time salaried employment and all that it entails: commuting, bosses, endless meetings, tax deducted at source, annual performance reviews and so on. Continue Reading…

Mark Seed: “I just did a thing: I retired in my early 50s”

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By Mark Seed, myownadvisor

Special to Financial Independence Hub

I  just did a thing: I retired in my early 50s

I can’t speak for others … but I’m sure there is a moment people imagine what their retirement day is and what that will feel like: a clean break, a celebratory toast, maybe even a sense of instant relaxation.

For me, while you could say stepping away from the workforce in my early 50s wasn’t a single moment – although April 23 was a special moment for me – it was actually the slow-progress and realization that I had crossed an invisible line into a completely new way of living.

And to be honest, even a few days after I handed in my laptop and badge, the feeling remains quite surreal about what just happened.

via GIPHY

I just did a thing – I retired in my early 50s

I just retired today - April 23, 2026

For most of my life, work shaped pretty much everything.

Work dictated my schedule (including requests for time-off and vacations), my priorities for the week, and even a big part of my own identity. These are not terrible things whatsoever but rather work involves trade-offs of my life energy, provided to an important cause, with financial compensation in return.

For more than 25 years while working at my former employer, a great one at that, conversations with others often began with:

“So, what do you do?”

“How is work?”

“What’s new with your job since we talked last time?”

And, I always had an answer.

For 25+ years.

Half of my life. 

Now, that answer is … well ….less straightforward.

While I enjoyed my job, the people I supported, my new identity is no longer defined by a job title whether that was going to the office physically or virtually from home.

Working for others is now my (very recent) former-self.

And certainly taking a leap-of-faith as I have told others, in my early 50s, to join my wife in Early Retirement was hardly accidental.

Early retirement was born out of many, many years of deliberate choices in life:

  • Consistent savings.
  • Keeping our investing costs low.
  • Investing in equities (stocks that paid dividends, Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) that paid distributions).
  • Getting out of debt.
  • And on and on …

What I am saying is there were both choices and important trade-offs made along the way. Early Retirement doesn’t happen overnight. It doesn’t happen in a year or so. It’s not something you just wake up and do.

While some folks around me took the flashy options, I often choose the less obvious road.

Maybe I missed out on things in doing so. Maybe I should have spent more money on things or experiences: although after already visiting many countries around the world to date I’m not quite convinced I’m that hard done by …

So, to be honest, instead of feeling like I really missed out over the years I see my lifestyle choices much differently this weekend: they bought me time.

And time, I believe, is the real currency of any retirement: My Own Advisor.

I just did a thing: I retired in my early 50s. So, now what?

My journey beforehand, including what I wrote about on this site, was mostly financial and not too personal.

I suspect moving forward it’s going to be a better balance.

Financially, it’s more about the shift from saving to spending.

The shift from saving to spending

The shift from saving to spending My last paycheque from a decades-long career at my current employer will be arriving in a few months for me – so there is a real need (soon) to shift from saving to spending. I’ve been thinking about some form of retirement for some time. There are many ways … Continue reading The shift from saving to spending

My Own Advisor

Continue Reading…

When to Sell your Precious Metals for Financial Benefits

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Find out when selling gold, silver, and other assets makes financial sense, and how timing, market conditions, and personal goals can shape better decisions.

Image courtesy Adobe Stock/Photographer: DragonImages

By Dan Coconate

Special to Financial Independence Hub

Selling gold or silver can support a stronger financial plan when the timing fits both market conditions and personal needs. The best decision often comes from balancing price trends, tax impact, and short-term cash goals instead of reacting to headlines.

Many households hold metals as a hedge, a store of value, or part of an inheritance. Knowing when to sell precious metals can help turn those holdings into funds for debt repayment, emergency savings, or major life expenses.

Start with the Reason for Selling

A clear purpose should guide the decision before any item goes on the market. Selling to cover high-interest debt or build a cash reserve often creates more financial benefit than holding metals during a period of flat prices.

Selling also makes sense when an asset no longer fits a broader plan. A collection that sits unused may offer more value as liquid funds than as a long-term holding with no clear role.

Watch Market Prices and Economic Conditions

Precious metal prices often move with inflation concerns, interest rates, and investor sentiment. A strong price run can create a good exit point, especially when gains meet a specific financial target.

Timing should still rest on more than the market alone. A solid sale happens when favorable pricing lines up with a real financial need or a planned shift in asset allocation.

Understand what you Own before Setting a Price

Not every item should sell based only on melt value. Coins, flatware, and older pieces may carry collectible or historical value that changes the right selling strategy. Continue Reading…

Early retirement planning – steps we’re taking in 2026

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By Bob Lai, Tawcan

Special to Financial Independence Hub

Image courtesy Tawcan/Unsplash

Life is uncertain. We are living our day-to-day lives with a certain level of uncertainty, but that’s part of the fun. Some people don’t like having too many uncertainties, so they take actions and precautions to reduce uncertainty.

The same thing can be said for early retirement and living off one’s investment portfolio. There are many steps you can take to increase the margin of safety of your investment portfolio to ensure it can sustain your lifestyle and you don’t run out of money.As we draw closer to achieving Financial Independence through dividend income, also known as living off dividends, we are spending more time on the steps needed to prepare ourselves for this significant financial and life milestone.

I thought it would be interesting to explore the steps we are taking in 2026 when it comes to our early retirement planning.

Building up our Cash Reserve

Along our Financial Independence journey, we have been extremely focused on building up our dividend portfolio. As a result, we have been working hard to grow our savings gap and invest the saved-up money to buy dividend stocks and index ETFs.

For the most part, we don’t keep a lot of cash in our chequing and savings accounts, because we see too much cash sitting around as opportunity cost.

But as we get closer to Financial Independence, it is important to start building up our cash reserve. Cash reserve is important because it provides flexibility and prevents us from having to sell off our investments during a sudden market crash because of some unexpected need.

Last year, we managed to save enough money so that we had over $25,000 in our Long Term Savings for Spending account. Unfortunately, at the time of writing, we are below that number because of the yearly RESP contributions and having to buy a new fridge. Since one of our financial goals is to have more than $35,000 in our cash reserve, this means we need to save up more to first bring the amount in our LTSS account to above $25,000 first, then try to save more to hit the $35,000 market.

But building up our cash reserve is more than just having cash sitting around in our bank account. It’s also about having cash available in our investment accounts, too, as I’ll explain in the next section.

Turning off DRIPs 

We are currently investing 100% of our dividend income. We enroll in dividend reinvestment plans (DRIPs), so dividends are automatically used to get additional shares. Years ago, when fractional DRIPs weren’t available, we could only drip full shares (i.e. dividends received were more than the share price). We’d let the remaining dividends accumulate in our accounts until we had over $1,000 before we bought more dividend stocks or index ETFs (we did this so the trading commission was less than 1% of the overall transaction).

Nowadays, with the existence of fractional DRIPs from brokers like WealthSimple and TD, most of our dividends are reinvested right away. Before fractional DRIPs were enabled with TD, and because TD charges $9.99 per trade, we would move the remaining dividends collected in our taxable account with TD to WealthSimple to take advantage of the no-commission trading. We no longer have to do this.

Questrade still doesn’t support fractional DRIPs (and only fractional share purchase on certain securities), so we can only drip full shares and the remaining dividends get deposited in our accounts. Since Questrade no longer charges trading commissions, we don’t need to wait for dividends to accumulate to over $1,000 before reinvesting the money. Lately, we would use dividends to buy more stocks & ETFs when there’s a red day in the markets.

As we get closer to Financial Independence, we plan to change the way we utilize DRIPs. We want to drip selectively. We plan to turn off drip in our taxable accounts and RRSPs by the middle of this year (or by Q3). We will keep DRIP on in our TFSAs to allow investments/dividends to compound.

That’s step one in building up a cash wedge in our taxable accounts and RRSPs for the eventual withdrawals when we do live off dividends. But we certainly don’t want money sitting in cash and not doing anything for us.

So what’s our plan with the dividends received in taxable accounts and RRSPs?

This is where investing in safe Cash Alternatives comes in.

Investing in safe Cash Alternatives

For dividends received in taxable accounts and RRSPs, we want to put them to work. But we don’t want to reinvest them into dividend-paying stocks, then have to sell stocks when we start withdrawing. Nor do we want to be waiting for dividends to accumulate before withdrawing.

With the money accumulating in our taxable account, RRSPs, and savings account, we need to look at alternative ways to grow the money so we are not losing purchasing power due to inflation.

The current plan is to invest dividends collected in high-yield high-interest savings account (HISA) ETFs like CASH and HSAV because these HISA ETFs have high liquidity.

Since distributions from these high-yield HISA ETFs are taxed as 100% interest income, they are not overly tax-efficient. Therefore, it makes sense to invest in these HISA ETFs inside of our RRSPs.

Note: I know that withdrawals from RRSPs are taxed as working income as well so there may not be too much of a difference, but income inside RRSPs is tax-deferred so we can let the interest grow until withdrawals. This is a lot better than taking the tax hit in the same year as when you receive the interest.

For dividends sitting in our taxable accounts, if we invest in “safer” investments like GICs, HISAs, HISAs ETFs, bond ETFs, or even money market, all the interest earned would be taxed as 100% interest income, and not very tax efficient. Unfortunately, there’s no other way around it. If we really want, I suppose we can invest the money in dividend-paying Canadian stocks, but that’d go against the idea of building up a cash reserve in our taxable accounts.

What would we do with the cash sitting in our LTSS? Well, we may consider parking some of it in cash inside a flexible high-interest savings account for planned expenses. To make sure money is working hard for us, it probably makes sense to invest the money in a high-yield HISA ETF.

Our plans with money in taxable accounts and LTSS aren’t 100% decided. More tax calculation and planning is needed, considering I will be working full-time and earning income in 2026 and Mrs. T is generating income via her side hustles.

If any readers have other suggestions or recommendations on what to do with cash in our LTSS and taxable accounts, I would love to hear them.

Alternatively, we can consider turning DRIP off first in our RRSP and invest the money in one of the HISA ETFs. Then, in the latter half of 2026, turn off DRIP in our taxable accounts to minimize tax consequences. This approach, however, means we won’t have as big a cash reserve.

It’s complicated to plan everything and that’s part of the fun of planning for early retirement!

Planning extended healthcare coverage

We currently have extended healthcare benefits through my employer. The extended healthcare benefits allow us to get coverage on prescription drugs, out-of-country trip medical coverage, paramedical services like massage, acupuncture, counselling, physiotherapy visits, vision care, and dental care. Continue Reading…