All posts by Jonathan Chevreau

How to protect your biggest asset: the ability to earn an income

Posted By |
ermosphoto
Ermos Erotocritou, CFP

By Ermos Erotocritou, CFP

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

When a person suffers an illness or injury, it may take some time to know how long it will last, and how long it will keep the person from earning an income.

Hopefully, the disability will last a short time. However, in many instances, the disability can last for a long period of time, perhaps for life. The consequences facing an individual will tend to vary with the length of time a person is disabled.

The consequences will also extend beyond financial concerns. While every everyone is different, and will react differently to events in life, there are some commonalties that tend to occur among people who experience a disability.

Possible consequences of short-term disability

Continue Reading…

Rethinking Retirement and Home Ownership

Posted By |
gbgorr
Gary Gorr, CHFC

By Gary Gorr, Chartered Financial Consultant

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

Recently I have been doing retirement assessments for several new customers. What amazed me as I spoke with them was how resigned to defeat the clients were. It was like they knew in their guts that they had started saving too little and too late to attain the retirement they wanted.

One answered my question on when do you want to retire by saying “around 120 is the only way I could.”

After the initial meetings I reflected on other circumstances from planning for customers in 2014 and noticed some commonalties.

  • Age range: 45-55
  • They own homes with attractive Fair Market Values
  • Had fairly decent equity positions in homes
  • Most would carry a mortgage into retirement
  • All had projected incomes at retirement far less than their desired outcome

Many Canadians, including these clients, have grown up with the belief that home ownership is an important goal. The home represents a significant part of their net worth.

Not easy to unlock home equity

Continue Reading…

Why do we invest?

Posted By |
IMG_3822
Aman Raina, Sage Investors

By Aman Raina, Sage Investors

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

One day as I was perusing the world wide web, I came across a posting about DRIP investments, which ran in the new blog by PWL Capital’s Justin Bender.

What caught my eye had nothing to do with DRIP investments but more about a comment made at the end of article that really got me thinking. It said:

“…Investors should be focusing their attention to more important investment decisions that are likely to have a bigger impact on overall success (such as savings rate, expenses, risk, fees, taxes, and behaviour)…” 

Make no mistake, these are important factors in developing your investment ideology or strategy. However, these elements just get you into the game of investing; on their own they are not going to guarantee you will be successful. Continue Reading…

4 easy ways to save more this year

Posted By |
robb-engen
Robb Engen, Boomer & Echo

By Robb Engen, Boomer & Echo

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

I know it’s tough to save money. It’s even more difficult to up the ante and increase your savings year-after-year. But saving is necessary to meet both our short- and-long-term financial goals. Without any savings, and living paycheque-to-paycheque every month, you’ll either work until you die or else retire in extreme poverty.

So what will it take for you to save more this year? Some people start off small, saving two or three per cent of their salary, and that’s fine – every little bit counts. But many of us short-change our retirement by not finding ways to increase that amount every year. Here are four easy ways to save more in 2015:

  1. Take up a challenge

Continue Reading…

10 reasons to quit your job in 2015 (and a few not to)

Posted By |

Quit job markBy Jonathan Chevreau

Via Linked In comes this insightful article listing ten reasons to quit your job in 2015.

Click above link for the full article. I’ve reproduced the ten headings below, after which I make a few additional observations, based on my own transition in 2014 from employment (21 consecutive years of it.)

The bottom line is this is what Findependence (Financial Independence) is all about, and the raison d’être of this website.  In fact, the cover of the US edition of my book on Financial Independence is very similar to the illustration to the left, except that the calendar date circled is Findependence Day.

As I note below, there may also be good reasons NOT to quit your job in 2015 but instead in 2016 or later. I wrote the original Findependence Day in 2008 but the day didn’t actually arrive until 2014, so you could say it was six years in the making. Sometimes, big life events need to be planned out that far ahead.

In any case, here are the ten reasons for quitting sooner than later:  Continue Reading…