Reviews

We review books that deal with everything from financial independence topics to politics, and anything in between. We may sometimes stray into films and music if there is a “Findependence” angle.

Re-introducing Tontine Annuities Might Shave Years Off Your Findependence Day

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Moshe Milevsky

By Moshe A. Milevsky

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

Here is a non-surprising fact. Most retired individuals do not choose to voluntarily annuitize their accumulated wealth or savings at retirement. They prefer the lump sum. This has been christened by financial economists: “the annuity puzzle” and has been the topic of Ph.D. theses for decades. I am guilty of supervising a few of these myself.

Sadly, life annuities are relatively unpopular – especially compared to stocks and bonds — in a large part of the world and simply unavailable in most others. Indeed, the few jurisdictions and countries in which there is a sizeable market for annuity products – such as Canada or the U.S. — it is often driven by tax-advantaged treatment and/or government “nudging and defaults” as opposed to an intrinsic consumer appreciation for longevity insurance. Like most insurance products, they are ‘sold’ but rarely purchased.

Could the past hold the key to Longevity Insurance?

Continue Reading…

Early days with the Apple Watch: so far so good

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Here’s my latest MoneySense blog, which tells the story of my first week with the Apple Watch. I’ve added some photographs below that show the packaging.

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By Jonathan Chevreau

Over the years, I’ve been both an early adopter of technology devices as well as, on occasion, a late adopter. Early with notebook computers and the first Macintosh in 1984, but late with the Blackberry and the iPhone.

As someone who didn’t even wear a traditional watch, the hype over Apple’s new Watch intrigued me. As I wrote a few weeks ago here at MoneySense.ca, I decided I’d become an early adopter of the Apple Watch, preordering it the day after it was permitted. Continue Reading…

Gail Bebee releases third edition of No Hype book

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NoHypeCoverToday’s Hub review is a bit unusual in that we’ve allowed an author to review her own book. I originally reviewed No Hype: The Straight Goods on Investing Your Money when it came out almost a decade ago and found it a useful addition to the genre, seeing as so many financial books these days are written by financial professionals.

It was refreshing to see a book written by a pure financial consumer like Gail, who like the rest of us has to sort the financial wheat from the chaff and has no real axe to grind. As she says on her web site, she’s an independent voice.

Hopefully we’ll review it in the more traditional manner over the coming weeks or months but in the meantime, it’s nice to know the book is still out there and has been revised.

Incidentally, and as noted in Saturday’s weekly wrap, Gail and I are among six speakers at The Financial Show in Mississauga later this month. Joining us will be Gordon Pape,  Pat Bolland, Jim Ruta and Scot Blythe. — Jonathan Chevreau

By Gail Bebee,

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

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Gail Bebee

When I set out in 2006 to write the original No Hype – The Straight Goods on Investing Your Money, my goal was to create a readable book that set down all the investing basics for Canadians, without a financial industry bias. It was born from my frustration at not finding such a book when I decided to take control of investing my money.

Thousands of books and two sold-out editions later, the students taking my Investment Planning night school course at Toronto District School Board still need a good reference, and retail investors are still looking for an objective, understandable book on all the investing basics written expressly for Canadians. Continue Reading…

How to achieve “Flow” — or optimal experience

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flowBy Jonathan Chevreau,

Financial Independence Hub

In a book on happiness we reviewed here recently, I came across a book called Flow, billed in the subtitle as “The psychology of optimal experience.”

This book, first published as a hardcover way back in 1990, became a New York Times bestseller and has spawned several followup titles elaborating on the concept of flow and creativity. The author’s name is not easily recalled: Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi, a psychology professor at California’s Drucker School of Management and also director of the Quality of Life Research Center at Drucker. (Incidentally, if you find the name unpronounceable and unmemorable, as I do, one of his books helpfully suggests the surname can be pronounced “chick-SENT-me-high.”)

Here’s what Wikipedia says about Flow and the author who coined the term.

I must say that I was a bit skeptical about the term at first: Continue Reading…

The 5 money secrets of happy retirees

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Mature couple sitting back to back on a sofa with laptop computers

My latest MoneySense column in the print edition of the magazine is now available online, entitled 5 Money Secrets to a Happy Retirement. Click on the link for the full column but note that Wes Moss is no stranger to the Financial Independence Hub.

Several of the books mentioned in the column, or books like them, have been featured here in the Hub’s Review section. They include (with links to the Hub reviews): Continue Reading…