All posts by Jonathan Chevreau

Debt-free in 30 podcast on Victory Lap Retirement

Posted By Jonathan Chevreau | September 24, 2016

jonmikecropped — Doug Hoyes (in red), Mike Drak (C), Jon Chevreau (R)

As of Saturday morning, you can find a half-hour podcast conducted by Debt-free in 30’s Doug Hoyes about the new book, Victory Lap Retirement.

My co-author, Mike Drak, and I were in Waterloo last week to tape the session and sign a few books.

Click on the highlighted text here to listen to Victory Lap Retirement. EXCLUSIVE First Podcast Interview.

Or you can scroll down below for a lightly edited transcript of the proceedings.

But first, here’s an overview written by Doug Hoyes, co-founder of insolvency trustees Hoyes Michalos:

Doug Hoyes:

Today’s podcast is the first ever podcast interview with Jonathan Chevreau and Mike Drak together, talking about their new book Victory Lap Retirement. This is so exclusive an interview that the book won’t even be officially released until October 10, 2016 but it is available for pre-order at amazon.ca, and the Kindle version is available now.

Jonathan was a guest back on Show #5 where we discussed his previous book, Findependence Day.

Mike Drak created the concept of a Victory Lap as an alternative to retirement, and teamed up with Jonathan to write their new book.

So what is a Victory Lap?

You will have to read the book for a full description, but as Jonathan and Mike and I discussed the concept of retirement has changed significantly. Our grandparents and parents had a good chance of working at the same company until aged 65, and then retiring with a full pension before dying at age 70.

Today almost no-one works at the same company for their entire working life, and most employers no longer offer full pensions, so the old fashioned view of retirement at age 65 with a full pension is no longer reality for most workers.

Instead, we are working longer, and living longer.

The essence of Victory Lap Retirement is to leave corporate employment, which usually entails working for someone else, and enter a new and different phase of your life.

Mike and Jonathan wrote Victory Lap Retirement to show readers how to transition from a high stress work environment to a low stress sustainable lifestyle to enjoy a happier, healthier life. For many, that may involve turning a hobby or passion into income during your “retirement” years, or working part time to “stay involved.”

Debt and Retirement

Debt is a prominent subject in Victory Lap Retirement, including this quote:

…make breaking free from the chains of debt your first priority. Not only will debt limit your financial freedom severely, it will suck the life right out of you.

As we discussed, debt and retirement don’t mix. When you retire your income decreases, so it’s likely you won’t be able to afford payments on a mortgage or other debt in retirement. Get out of debt long before retirement.

Unfortunately that’s not always possible, which is why seniors are the fastest growing age group of people filing bankruptcy and consumer proposals. Older debtors, aged 50 and older, now account for 30% of all insolvency filings, up from 27% two years ago, and that number keeps growing.

Senior debtors, people aged 60 and over, have the highest amount of unsecured debt of any age group when they go bankrupt, almost $70,000. A growing percentage of them even resort to payday loans to stay afloat.

If you’ve got debt, retirement is very difficult. If you have trouble making your debt payments while you are working, it may be impossible to keep up when you retire and your income drops, which is why we all agree that eliminating debt is essential long before retirement.

In addition to eliminating debt, Mike and Jonathan suggest you ask yourself “what do I like to do?” and start planning your Victory Lap now.

For more, listen to the podcast or read the transcript.

Transcript:

Robo-Advisers disrupting wealth management industry but Service could determine how much

Posted By Jonathan Chevreau | September 19, 2016

As my article in the print edition of Monday’s Financial Post goes into in some depth, the recently released DALBAR study on North American robo-advisers highlights several challenges the pioneering industry faces with new customers, or in poaching them from the established wealth management industry.

See the headline Service ‘gaps’ in robo advice: Dalbar study (page FP1). You can find the online version here under the headline ‘Robos are getting a pass’: Study points to gaps in automated investment advice.

Many older and wealthier clients may get “poached” from the traditional wealth management industry, whether retail mutual funds, banks, investment counsellors, full-service brokerage or other segments. Of course, in some cases, robo-advisers are landing “new” money from young people who may never have invested before. Millennials are a big focus of some robo-advisers (such as Toronto-based Wealthsimple).

Last Tuesday, the Hub ran a blog outlining the major points issued in the Dalbar press release, and we also published reaction from three Canadian robos: JustWealth, NestWealth.com, Wealthbar and the aforementioned Wealthsimple. See Becoming a Robo-Advisor Client may be challenging, Dalbar finds.

The 126-page study — which not all robo-advisers have seen — contains plenty of information that couldn’t be summarized in the FP piece. It begins by noting that these services are “one of the fastest growing segments in the wealth management space” and that they have “managed to capture significant share of wallet from the established wealth management providers in … a short period of time.” The report mentions that Wealthsimple has grown to $500 million in assets from a standing start in 2014.

The report has a relatively small sample size: 45 mystery shoppers (15 US, 30 in Canada) were asked to sign up to various Robos. Almost half of them were in their 30s. To assess risk, Dalbar directed these mystery shoppers “to ask for high returns in a short time period to test risk response mechanisms.”

Below, I present some more highlights that have not yet been covered:

Robo firms covered in the Dalbar report

First, the report looked at five American robo-advisers and ten Canadian ones (interesting that there weren’t more US ones!)

The US firms were Betterment, Charles Schwab, Future Advisor, TradeKing Advisors and Vanguard. (interesting that the oft-cited Wealthfront is not in: Dalbar told me it was based on what clients chose.)

The Canadian firms were (in the order Dalbar listed them): BMO SmartFolio, Invisor, JustWealth, Modern Advisor, NestWealth, Questrade Portfolio IQ, RoboAdvisor Plus, Smart Money Capital, Wealthbar and Wealthsimple.

Why clients chose particular services

Asked why clients chose a particular service, 100% of Betterment clients cited convenience while 100% of Vanguard clients cited reputation. WealthSimple clients cited equally (25% each) advertising, convenience, executive team and reputation. Interestingly, 75% of BMO clients cited its bank affiliation, and 25% its reputation. Invisor was a 3-way split between advertisements, executive team and product selection. JustWealth was an even 4-way split between advertisements, reputation, convenience and — this is interesting — being the “first to return my initial contact.” The latter point also accounted for 25% for NestWealth, Wealthbar and Modern Advisor. For NestWealth, the other three reasons, all an equal 25%, were convenience, platform offered and reputation. For Questrade Portfolio IQ it was 67% convenience and 33% reputation.

Reasons for Choosing vary with Client income levels

The report broke clients down into three clients with annual incomes that I’ll call low, medium and high: $60,000 to $75,000, $75,000 to $100,000 and $100,000 to $150,000 or more.

For the low-income clients, Convenience was most often cited, 30% of the time, followed by Platform Offered (26%) and Reputation (17%) and Pricing (9%).

For the middle-income clients, Reputation was most important, at 38%, followed by First to Return Initial Contact at 19%, executive team at 13%, and equal 6% allotments for Advertisements, Bank Affiliation, Convenience, Platform offered and Pricing.

For high-income clients, Reputation was most important in 33% of cases, followed by even 17% allotments to advertisements, bank affiliation, convenience and executive team. Remember these are small sample sizes, but none of the high-income clients even cited pricing, platform offered , product selection, or First to Return Initial Contact.

Motivations for trying a Robo-Adviser

Curiosity seemed to be a major driver for wanting to check out a robo service in the first place, Dalbar found, followed by lower fees and convenience. Not surprisingly, lower costs dominated for the high-income group, 83% citing it, followed by 17% time saving. For the middle-income group, 44% just cited the desire to try new technology; this was also cited by 30% of the low-income group. The two lower-income groups were also influenced by the fact robo-services let you start investing with relatively small amounts of money.

Cross-border differences in account opening times

Time to open an account varied from five to more than 30 minutes in Canada. Canadian users needed up to six times more time to open than their US counterparts. 75% of US robo users needed just 10 or 15 minutes to open an account, while 70% of Canadian robo users needed 15 to 60 minutes. Most Canadian users felt it took “too long” to open an account and US robos were perceived as being much easier to work with than their Canadian counterparts.

Dalbar singled out NestWealth as being most consistent, with most clients able to complete a risk assessment questionnaire in 15 to 30 minutes. US robo firms were faster but mostly because the questionnaires were shorter.

Aman Raina’s robo-experience

Optimizing CPP: the later you start taking it, the better

Posted By Jonathan Chevreau | September 15, 2016

Here’s my latest MoneySense Retired Money blog, which looks at the perennial topic of when to take the Canada Pension Plan, or CPP. Click on the highlighted text that follows: The best time to take CPP to maximize payouts. (It may be necessary to subscribe to get full access to the piece after a certain limited number of monthly views to the site).

In an earlier blog in the series, I revealed why personally I planned to take Old Age Security as soon as it was on offer, at age 65.

In this followup, I come to the diametrically opposite conclusion that the longer you commence deferring the onset of CPP benefits, the better — assuming normal health and longevity expectations.

I consulted three major sources for the piece. One is Doug Dahmer, founder of Burlington-based Emeritus Retirement Solutions. You can also access a useful CPP tool he runs at www.cppoptimizer.com. Run Dahmer’s name in the Hub’s search engine and you can find a number of guest blogs on the topic of decumulation.

In a nutshell, Doug thinks most of us — including me and my wife — should defer CPP as late as 70, choosing instead to start withdrawing from RRSPs in our 60s, assuming the money is needed on.

Another useful source I consulted is Doug Runchey of Victoria-based DR Pensions Consulting. For a small fee, Runchey — who used to work with the CPP — will take your government-issued CPP contribution statements and crunch the numbers to tell you how to optimize your benefits.

Becoming a new Robo-Advisor client may be challenging, Dalbar finds

Posted By Jonathan Chevreau | September 13, 2016

DALBAR has released results for its study of the user experience of North American users of robo-adviser services, dubbed the Robo-advisor Onboarding Experience study.

It found that opening a new account is a critical first point of contact between a service provider and a client.

In this press release, it found that some Canadian robo-advisors are “clearly falling short of peer performance as well as of Canadian investors’ expectations for service in the wealth management space.”

Service gaps identified

Funding the account was the biggest challenge facing Canadian robo-advisors.
Several firms encountered serious technical and logistical challenges using live chat effectively.

Early retirement? Half of us in trouble if we miss a single paycheque

Posted By Jonathan Chevreau | September 7, 2016

Patrick_Mar05web — CPA CEO Patrick Culhane

As my Financial Post blog today summarizes, far from being confident about a comfortable or even early retirement, almost half of working Canadians (48%) say it would be hard to make ends meet if their paycheque were delayed even a single week. Click on the highlighted headline for full story: Nearly half of Canadians are living paycheque to paycheque — and that has big consequences for retirement security.

Almost one in four (24%) don’t think they could come up with $2,000 if an emergency arose in the next month, according to the Canadian Payroll Association (CPA)’s eighth annual Research Survey of Employed Canadians, which is being made public on Wednesday.

The survey of 5,600 employees across Canada (conducted by Framework Partners between June 27 and Aug 5) found 40% spend all or more than their net pay, while 47% are able to save only 5% or less of earnings. Little wonder that 75% have saved a quarter or less of their retirement goal. Even among those aged 50 or more, a “disturbing” 47% are still less than a quarter of the way to their retirement savings goal.

Half think they’ll need $1 million to retire, and will need till 62 to do so

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