All posts by Jonathan Chevreau

Managing Inflation in Retirement

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Roger Wohlner, The Chicago Financial Planner

By Roger Wohlner,

Special to the Financial Independence Hub 

Inflation may seem like a tame or even non-existent threat. We are actually witnessing deflation in the price of oil and other commodities as I write this. Even so, it’s highly unlikely that inflation is dead. The U.S. economy continues to recover from the financial crisis and times of economic recovery are often a trigger for higher inflation.

An annual inflation rate of 2 per cent or 3 per cent over a period of years can seriously erode the purchasing power of your retirement nest egg.  At 2.5 per cent inflation, US$1 today will be worth approximately 78 cents in 10 years, 61 cents in 20 years, and 48 cents in 30 years. This could have a major impact on those entering retirement and those already in retirement.

Managing inflation in retirement is crucial;  here are some thoughts you need to consider. Continue Reading…

Retirement, Findependence or Unretirement?

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Chad Smith (FinancialSymmetry.com)

Certified financial planner Chad Smith has written a piece called Retirement, Findependence or Unretirement. Which path are you on?

Safe to say we all know what the word Retirement refers to. Those coming to this website will also know Findependence, a contraction for Financial Independence. Smith credits financial planner and blogger Michael Kitces for pushing for Financial Independence as a more useful term than Retirement, especially for Millennials.

This observation was also made by Alan Moore of XY Planning Network at this blog here at the Hub late in 2014.

I had also made a similar recommendation at a blog I wrote about the same time for Roger Wohlner’s The Chicago Financial Planner.  And on the same theme, I gave a little talk for Toastmasters on this, which I later expanded here at the Hub. Continue Reading…

How Ernie Zelinski retired Happy, Wild & Free

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How-to-Retire-Happy-Cover-3D-2-2-AI have a lot of books about Retirement and Financial Independence in my personal library, but I seldom go through any one twice. Today’s review is an exception because of a lunch I had with a friend we’ll call Albert (not his actual name).

Albert is a former client with whom I’ve kept in touch. He’s now 70 and just begun to retire. Because of various circumstances, he was unable to engage in most of the basic practices described here at the Hub, so no taxable or non-registered savings for Albert.

Fortunately for him, he bought a house in Toronto at something like a third of what’s it’s worth now, and it’s that home equity that has allowed him to finally stop working. He has no dependents and after going over the pros and cons took out a reverse mortgage. Continue Reading…

How the falling loonie affects U.S. equity ETFs

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Depositphotos_40901151_xsAfter the loonie plummeted 2 cents to 81 cents US after yesterday’s surprise interest-rate cut, it seems an apt time to address a common misunderstanding about how the falling Canadian dollar affects US equity ETFs denominated in either country’s currency.

This was nicely tackled a year ago by Dan Bortolotti in his Canadian Couch Potato blog here.

Dan — who is both a consulting editor with MoneySense Magazine as well as an investment adviser with PWL Capital — had been chatting with me about the upcoming MoneySense ETF All-Stars feature in general and about the much-misunderstood topic of currency hedging in particular.

Personally, I believe international securities exposure provides diversification both for stocks or bonds but also currencies. I agree with Certified Financial Planner Fred Kirby (see Getting Help section)  that the first 20% or 30% of foreign currency exposure doesn’t need to be hedged back into your home country (loonie if you’re Canadian, greenback if you’re American). Of course, American investors who bought US stocks then are laughing. Similarly, if a Canadian invested much of their RRSP directly into US stocks or US equity funds denominated in US$ soon after the 2008 financial crisis and didn’t hedge currencies,  they’re probably a happy camper today. Continue Reading…

Ominous trend in Millennials’ use of credit cards

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Here’s my latest MoneySense blog, which looks at what I perceive to be a developing problem in the abuse of credit cards by a few Millennials with whom I am acquainted. I name no names but the guilty know who they are! More’s the pity, because the book Findependence Day starts with an opening scene built around a young couple’s similar credit-card problem!

For archival one-stop-shopping purposes and convenience, here’s the original version:

Young Woman on a Shopping SpreeBy Jonathan Chevreau

With some reluctance, I feel compelled to return to the age-old topic of excessive credit-card debt. I do so because lately I’ve had chats with some of my nephews and nieces, all in the age range of 23 to 24. These kids have now all graduated from university or community college, have made a first stab at being in the workforce, and have already racked up what I consider to be excessive credit-card debt. Continue Reading…