All posts by Jonathan Chevreau

How to find cheaper air flights

Posted By Jonathan Chevreau | January 19, 2015

An interesting gambit for scoring cheaper airline flights was revealed in this week’s Economist. The short item titled Phantom Fights exposes two methods of exploiting anomalies in the air ticketing system in the U.S. market.

The first is to use a web site called Skiplagged that hunts for so-called “hidden-city tickets.”

The second is a ruse called “fuel-dumping” by which traveller add extra flights to their itineraries that they don’t actually intend to take.

Both gambits have been relatively little-known, according to the article, were it not for the unintended consequence of a lawsuit against Skiplagged’s 22 year old founder. As the newspaper notes, “there are few better ways to draw attention to something than trying to have information about it taken down from the Internet.”

“Robo Advisers” — Rise of the machines

Posted By Jonathan Chevreau | January 19, 2015

By Doug Dahmer, Emeritus Retirement Income Specialists

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

I know Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, I read Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and I love the Terminator movies (I’ll be back!).

From all this I know three things: Robots are very smart. Robots always start off to help you. Robots have a tendency to turn on you.

One of the newest crazes and buzzwords in personal finance is: “Robo-Adviser.” If you’re not familiar with the term, it refers to investment management by algorithm in the absence of human input.

With a “Robo” you are asked to complete an on-line risk assessment questionnaire. Your responses determines the prescribed portfolio of ETFs (Exchange-Traded Funds) with a built-in asset allocation best suited to your needs. Once a year the portfolio is rebalanced to this prescribed asset allocation recipe.

Dynamics change as shift from Saving to Spending

7 things you may not know about TFSAs

Posted By Jonathan Chevreau | January 17, 2015

From the latest issue of MoneySense comes this list of 7 things you don’t know about Tax Free Savings Accounts. Note to any American readers: Canada’s TFSA is similar to Roth IRAs.

Here are senior writer Julie Cazzin’s seven facts. Click through above link for more complete explanation.

1.) Whatever amount you withdraw from a TFSA is added to your contribution room in the following calendar year.

2.) Interest, dividends and capital gains in your TFSA are not considered income, even when you withdraw the money. Continue Reading…

Why Boomer & Echo’s Robb Engen dumped stocks to be 100% an indexer

Posted By Jonathan Chevreau | January 15, 2015

By Robb Engen, Boomer & Echo

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

For a while now I’ve dithered over when to sell my portfolio of dividend stocks and implement my two-fund ETF solution. The tanking stock market didn’t help – particularly with oil and gas stocks plummeting and a few of my holdings underwater. Behaviourally, I badly wanted to wait until oil prices recovered so I didn’t have to sell those stocks at a loss.

But last Thursday I finally took the plunge and sold 24 dividend stocks, worth roughly $100,000, and immediately replaced them with two ETFs from Vanguard. I’m not going to lie; it was hard to sell my babies:

Finally did it. Sold all of my dividend stocks. Feels like a part of me died today.

— Boomer and Echo (@BoomerandEcho) January 7, 2015

Retirement planning would be so much easier if we knew when we’re going to die

Posted By Jonathan Chevreau | January 14, 2015

By Jonathan Chevreau

My latest MoneySense blog is on the pros and cons of Extreme Early Retirement, or its opposite, which one reader dubbed “Extreme Working.” It was in response to my recent column in the magazine about extended longevity, a theme we regularly explore here at the Financial Independence Hub’s “Longevity & Aging” section.

David Davidson

As mentioned in the MoneySense version of the blog, one of the readers highlighted — Oakville-based David Davidson — also sent along a photograph of himself, which we’re running here (on the left).

What this all comes down to, and as I commented on Twitter after the original MoneySense blog was posted, is that “Retirement planning would be so much easier if we just knew the exact date of our death!”

Of course, few of us know that so there’s always going to be a tradeoff between planning for a long life that never materializes; and under-saving and living in the present, only to find yourself running out of money before you run out of life. Personally, I’d rather err on the side of the first possibility but as you can see below, some readers (including David shown above), make the case for the second possibility, or a balance between either extreme. Some on Twitter are in the same camp, including Ryan (@simplemoolah):