Finance Minister Joe Oliver (Department of Finance/Flickr)
By Jonathan Chevreau
Journalists and financial experts will be entering a “Lock-up” this morning in Ottawa, getting roughly a six-hour head start on the rest of us on the contents of the 2015 federal budget.
Even so, a combination of leaks and informed speculation give us a pretty good idea about the contents, which will gush forth within seconds of 4 pm, when the embargo is lifted.
Here at the Financial Independence Hub, we will be focusing on three main measures that if announced will do much to speed or improve our collective “Findependence.” Our hoped-for “trifecta” from Finance Minister Joe Oliver (pictured above) includes the much-delayed promise of a doubling of annual TFSA limits, a lowering of minimum withdrawal limits for RRIFs, and lower tax rates for small business. Continue Reading…
So you and your spouse have decided to retire. At some point in your retirement planning you must ask yourself where you would like to spend your Golden Years. The following questions and insight should place you on the right path for finding just the location that suits your needs.
First things first
The first question you must ask yourselves is whether you want to stay in the home in which you are currently living or would like to move elsewhere. Retirement is a big step. Sometimes people feel more secure staying in familiar surroundings because it makes the transition to your new lifestyle smoother. Others, for financial reasons, a change of pace, health reasons, or for better weather, want to relocate. In this case, the next decision you must make is whether you want to stay in your home country or move overseas.
If you want to stay in your home country you must decide what sort of climate is most attractive to you. Do you want to experience the four seasons or have a more moderate, year-round climate? Do you like mountains or beaches? What size of city or town do you most enjoy? These questions are important because they automatically exclude places you won’t need to research. Knowing what you prefer in climate, city size and geographical configuration carries a lot of weight in terms of your happiness quotient.
Another thing to consider is that if you choose a town or small city, are there adequate medical facilities nearby? Larger cities tend to have a full range of medical care. Smaller towns generally have clinics and a variety of doctor’s offices, but perhaps not the equipment needed for complex medical situations.
Excerpt: With the Bank of Canada holding still on further rate changes, BlackRock’s Head of Canadian Fixed Income Aubrey Basdeo explains why this may not be the end of the story.
The Bank of Canada left its key overnight interest rate unchanged in its April 15 announcement –- no surprise there. Given that the central bank had been signalling for some time that it was taking time to assess the impact of the “insurance” it took out in January with a surprise 25 bps rate cut, most analysts expected Governor Stephen Poloz to stand pat. And he did.
With that out of the way, the more important factor now is what the Bank sees as the trajectory of economic growth for Canada, because that will be fixed-income investors’ guide for how it will react to disappointment or surprises along the way. For the record, we believe there is a lot of room for disappointments that may derail the Bank’s forecast growth trajectory.
Strong rebound expected in second & third quarter
But first let’s look at what the Bank had to say about the economic picture going forward. The storyline goes something like this: Yes, the first quarter was terrible, maybe even atrocious, but things are going to get better real fast. Continue Reading…
Gordon Pape, author of the definitive TFSA book, Tax-Free Savings Accounts, wrote a couple of good pieces this week for the Globe & Mail on what next Tuesday’s federal budget may have in store for the TFSA. In TFSAs benefit more than the rich, Pape listed various groups that can benefit from TFSAs, including seniors, savers, young people, income splitters and low-income Canadians. Or as I’ve said, pretty much every Canadian 18 years of age or more.
An earlier Pape column on Monday titled Oliver’s plan to raise TFSA limits raises many questions, looked at whether the promised “doubling” of an annual TFSA contribution limits would be double the original $5,000 limit, for a total of $10,000, or double the current $$5,500 limit for a total of $11,000. Hey, we’d be happy with either event! The other main question is how inflation indexing would be handled.
My friend the inimitable Norman Rothery posted a blog at MoneySense.ca Thursday that was inspired by a Twitter exchange last weekend: the post is titled Apple Watch Delays Findependence.
On Twitter, I had publicly disclosed that I had pre-ordered the new Apple Watch, even though delivery is several weeks away. Norm made a query about the possible impact on Findependence, then followed up in his blog by suggesting that young people buying these gadgets might seriously be delaying the arrival of their Findependence Day(that is, the day they reach Financial Independence) by 17 days for the cheapest model and for as much as two years for the expensive glitzy gold model.
I have no great problem with the blog, a typically contrarian piece by a great value investor: it’s all grist for the mill, as they say and I’m happy to see an influential writer like Norm use the term Findependence. Even so, let me assure readers out there who may have fancied me to be a frugal kind of guy that I quite definitely did NOT purchase the expensive gold-banded version. For the curious, I picked one of the simple entry-level models with a black band and the smaller watch-face, roughly the model illustrated above.
I entirely agree with Norman that the first generation of technology tends to have kinks and it’s never a bad idea to wait for a few releases and let the pioneers suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous technology fortune.
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