Decumulate & Downsize

Most of your investing life you and your adviser (if you have one) are focused on wealth accumulation. But, we tend to forget, eventually the whole idea of this long process of delayed gratification is to actually spend this money! That’s decumulation as opposed to wealth accumulation. This stage may also involve downsizing from larger homes to smaller ones or condos, moving to the country or otherwise simplifying your life and jettisoning possessions that may tie you down.

Keeping the spark: Pursuing FIRE and staying aligned on money

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Image courtesy Tawcan/unsplash

By Bob Lai, Tawcan

Special to Financial Independence Hub

On paper, Financial Independence Retire Early (FIRE) is a simple concept: spend less than you earn, grow your savings gap, optimize your taxes, invest your savings, and wait for your money to compound over time.

But one thing that doesn’t get covered enough with the FIRE movement is the relationship side of money.

To be more specific, if you’re on the FIRE journey with a partner, how do you make sure the two of you are aligned? After all, if you and your partner aren’t on the same page, none of it matters.

For us, Mrs. T and I have been on the FI journey since 2011. This year marks the 15th year of our journey. That’s 15 years of saving, budgeting, investing, making difficult financial decisions, and occasionally having disagreements on money-related decisions.

I figure it’s worthwhile to spend some time discussing how we stay aligned on money and some of the relationship challenges we have faced since we started our FI journey.

How it all started: The financial epiphany

Although both of us came from frugal backgrounds and we both learned in our youth to spend less than we earn, we didn’t really focus on optimizing our finances or investing intentionally when we started dating and when we started living together.

It wasn’t until we read the Secret of Millionaire Mindset that we started having deeper and more detailed conversations about money and how we want our financial future to be. Around the same time, we were also considering getting married, so it was important to make sure we were both aligned on our future financial plans. We both recognized that building wealth through saving and investing could give us more options and freedom in the future.

But just because we talked about money didn’t mean we always agreed on every financial decision we made.

Far from that!

How we are different due to our money personalities 

Mrs. T and I don’t think about money the same way.

Deep down, I’m an “extreme” saver and optimizer. I’d always find ways to optimize things and try to save as much money as possible. Even if I could save 50% on something, I would try to find more ways to save another 20%.

Mrs. T, on the other hand, is a more balanced saver. She doesn’t like spending money unnecessarily, but typically won’t climb the mountain to see if she could save even more.

Another way we are different is that I’m a self-proclaimed spreadsheet nerd. I am a numbers person and I love spreadsheets. I have many different spreadsheets tracking different things and data, charting our historical trends and projecting future ones. Whenever I see data in spreadsheets, I see data and optimization opportunities.

Mrs. T likes spreadsheets too but not nearly to the extent that I do.. She’s more practical and intuitive. She cares whether we have enough and whether we can enjoy life now without sacrificing our future. She likes to see things from the 30,000-foot view rather than getting into the nitty-gritty details, as I do.

Our different money personalities created some disagreements and discontent when we first started our FI journey. For example, Mrs. T enjoyed going to a cafe to have great conversations while having a good cup of coffee and delicious pastries (i.e. having hygge). Meanwhile, I would calculate in my mind how much money we could have saved and invested if we hadn’t spent the money.

Realizing what we needed to keep us aligned 

Over time, I realized my save-save-save-then-save-more default mentality wasn’t healthy. I learned that I need to relax and spend money to enjoy the present moment. On the flip side, Mrs. T began to understand my worries and my insecurity with not having enough money and started to cut back slightly on the “nice to have” expenses.

We found our “balance” by meeting each other in the middle. We both learned that it’s vital for us to stay aligned financially. These are some systems and habits that have helped us:

Regular money conversations 

We talk about money regularly but we try to keep it natural and relaxed rather than turning these chats into formal meetings. We’ll talk about money over meals, over coffee hygge, or while driving. Quite often, we involve both kids and explain to them why we are talking about these topics. In our household, we don’t shy away from money talks, we encourage them.

These money conversations happen regularly, sometimes multiple times a day. We keep them very casual and relaxed. Although we have regular money conversations, we don’t discuss our investment portfolio and net worth daily. We want to ignore the noise and focus on the long term. I’m in charge of the details and I provide Mrs. T the big picture updates without overwhelming her with all the details. So when it comes to investment portfolio and net worth, we typically discuss them in detail every quarter.

Reviewing our expenses: focusing on the trends rather than amount spent

When we first started tracking our expenses and using our budget system, I was very much focused on how much we spent on the different categories every month. I wasn’t looking at the big picture and certainly wasn’t focusing on the spending trend.

As our net worth grew larger and we had a few years of spending data on our hands, we finally developed a system that works for us. Every 6 months, Mrs. T and I will sit down for about 10 to 15 minutes to look at our spending spreadsheet. We look at the trends and see if there are categories we are overspending or underspending. If we are overspending in a certain category, we try to find out why. For example, if we were spending more than usual on dining out, perhaps it was because we had friends or family visiting.

Making the financial big decisions together 

For the most part, I manage our investment portfolio and make the buying and selling decisions. Sometimes I would consult with Mrs. T if I were to make drastic decisions like adding a new position or closing a position. Mrs. T trusts my judgment on the day-to-day investment decisions, but I found it is always a good idea to talk to her about my investment thesis and get an agreement on big portfolio moves.< Continue Reading…

What does Generation Squeeze have against couples with OAS?

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By Michael J. Wiener, 

Special to Financial Independence Hub

 

An organization called Generation Squeeze is calling for big cuts to Old Age Security (OAS).  For some reason, these cuts are aimed exclusively at senior couples.  Digging into the numbers, the proposal makes no sense.

The stated goal of the proposed OAS changes is to free up government money for other priorities.  Whether or not OAS is the right target for reducing government spending is a different discussion.  The puzzling part of this proposal is having all the cuts apply to senior couples.

Currently, OAS will get clawed back from any senior whose 2025 net income (Line 23400 of the tax return) is over $93,454.  For each dollar over this income threshold, OAS payments are reduced by 15 cents.  The current rules make no distinction between singles and couples.  The calculation is based on each person’s own income without regard to whether they have a spouse.

It’s more expensive for two people to live than just one

Generation Squeeze wants to change the threshold to $100,000 for total household income.  So, single seniors would lose nothing, and senior couples would eat all of the cuts.  The problem here is that it is more expensive for two people to live than just one.  The figure actuaries use is that it costs about 40% more for two people in the same home to live than it costs for one person. Continue Reading…

Safer investments for retirees: How to retire with less stress

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Overall we see safer investments for retirees as ones that focus on a long-term conservative strategy and make calculated use of RRSPs and RRIFs to boost returns

TSInetwork.ca

Retirement planning is becoming more challenging for Canadians because they’re living longer and need larger retirement nest eggs.

This often manifests itself in “pre-retirement financial stress syndrome.”

That’s the malady that strikes when it dawns on you that you may not have enough money saved to be able to earn the retirement income stream you were banking on.

 

To alleviate this worry, we recommend Successful Investors base their retirement planning on a sound financial plan. Here are the four key variables that your plan should address to ensure you have sufficient retirement income:

  1. How much you expect to save prior to retirement;
  2. The return you expect on your savings;
  3. How much of that return you’ll have left after taxes;
  4. How much retirement income you’ll need once you’ve left the workforce.

Note, though, that if you’re heading into retirement and are short of money, you should move your investing in the direction of safer, more conservative investments. That’s a far better option than taking one last gamble.

Moving into “too safe” investments for retirees can sharply cut your long-term returns

This applies as well to “risk-reducing strategies,” of which there are many. One of the most common is the urge to “go into cash” (also known as “taking money off the table”) when you foresee a market downturn. Like all risk-reducing strategies, this one can seemingly work from time to time, by getting you out of the market before a drop. But it’s even more effective at ensuring that you are out of the market when prices are shooting upward.

In the stock market, downturns do come along from time to time. But they are far less common than fears of downturns, which are virtually non-stop.

Editor’s Note: Last chance to register for today’s free AI investing webinar, hosted by The Successful Investor and Findependence Hub. The webinar begins today at 11:30 a.m. EDT and will cover practical ways to approach investing in A.I. stocks while keeping risk in mind. We shared the full details in our Canada Day blog post last week, with a reminder on July 4. If you would like to attend, you can still register here.

Pat McKeough has been one of Canada’s most respected investment advisors for over three decades. He is the founder and senior editor of TSI Network and the founder of Successful Investor Wealth Management. He is also the author of several acclaimed investment books. This article was published on June 4, 2026 and is republished on Findependence Hub with permission.

Matching your investment portfolios to your Retirement Cash Flow plan

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By Dale Roberts, Retirement Club/cutthecrapinvesting

Special to Financial Independence Hub

It appears to be an overlooked part of retirement planning. While we should always invest within our risk tolerance level we should also match our investment portfolios to the retirement cash flow plan. The plan gives the marching orders for each account. If you create a portfolio-to-plan mismatch, you could increase the risk of depleting an account too soon. On the other side if you are too conservative where an account has the time horizon to run, you create opportunity cost. You missed the opportunity to create significantly more wealth over time.

As always the following is not advice.

We can look to the Canadian asset allocation ETFs for a lesson on risk and asset allocation. In that post that tracks the performance of the asset allocation ETF providers, you’ll find this key table.

Source: Dale/ETF providers. Keep in mind there is no guarantee of returns for any period

We can see that when our time horizon is short we create conservative portfolios with lots of bonds and cash. When we have a longer time horizon of 10 years and more, we can be more aggressive perhaps even holding an all-equity portfolio. But once again, risk tolerance permitting.

I recently discussed risk and common mistakes on the BMO ETF Insights YouTube channel.

In the accumulation stage we might pay attention to this chart if you are saving for a home and plan to buy within the next two years. If would be very risk to hold those home down payment funds in an all equity (XEQT-T) portfolio. Your $100,000 could quickly be turned into $50,000 in a severe bear market.

Sequence of returns risk in retirement

Risk gets flipped in retirement. In the accumulation stage if you have 20 years to go before retirement and we enter a severe bear market, “great”. You can now buy your companies/equities at fire-sale prices. Over time that can generate a boost to your wealth creation. You own more of those great companies. Continue Reading…

Retired Money: What investors (especially retired ones) should know about “Finfluencers”

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Charles Schwab

My latest MoneySense Retired Money column has just been published. You can find the whole column by clicking on the hyperlink here: Online Influencers Grow Up.

When it comes to financial influencers, the popular term is  Finfluencer, a contraction similar to my own Findependence for Financial Independence.

The column was inspired by an interesting gathering of Canadian finfluencers organized by BMO ETFs, which occurred in the first half of June. The BMO Creator Insights Forum was held at Cboe Canada in Toronto and it ran a scrolling feed of domestic finfluencers which included Yours Truly.

Back in April of 2025, the OSC released a research report titled Social Media and Retail Investing: The Rise of Finfluencers, which found investors are indeed quite influenced by Finfluencers: OSC research on 655 Canadian retail investors found 35% of them had made a financial decision based on advice from a Finfluencer.  Furthermore, 24% of 1,465 Canadian social media users (both investors and non investors) exposed to finance-related social media posts were found to have purchased the promoted assets, versus just 7%  those not so exposed.

“Financial advice on social media is appealing because retail investors perceive it to be accessible, free, and informative,” the OSC said, “While retail investors believe finfluencers are generally motivated by self-interest, about 40% of investors believe that the finfluencers they follow are trustworthy. Those who have made a financial decision based on finfluencer advice were seven times more likely to trust finfluencers they follow.”

To be sure, it appears the more successful ones can make money at it: one BMO slide showed that the global influencer market is worth US$33 billion in 2025,  up 35% from US$24 billion a year earlier; and it estimated C$1.9 billion Canadian spending by corporations on Finfluencer marketing in 2025, up 23% from 2024. One in six Canadian retail investors have purchased an Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) because they heard about it on some form of social media.

The MoneySense column highlights the experiences of several (mostly young) Canadian Finfluencers, whose channels typically are YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and a few other platforms. They describe how they got their starts and built commnities that can eventually be monetized. It can be hard work in the early years, as with any one starting a business, and a precious commodity is building and maintaining reader or viewer trust.

Regulatory considerations for Finfluencers

The BMO Creator event closed with a more cautious overview of the regulatory risks corporations and Finfluencers jointly bear. One of the last slides, titled “Be Proactive!” advised Finfluencers to read the OSC notice, review their existing content inventory, evaluate services for registerable activities or disclosure requirements, Follow sponsorship disclosure requirements, Be careful of who you help endorse or promote and to Seek legal help to help stay compliant.

In short, whether you’re a seasoned investor (in both senses of the word) or still working, it’s very much a Buyer Beware world out there, while if you’re a content creator of any age, Trust is not a commodity to be abused or taken for granted. As Adrian Bar warned, content creators are better off passing on what might have otherwise become  lucrative partnerships if it compromises trust with their audience down the line.

Good on creators like that but if you’re a consumer or investor, wait until a Finfluencer has earned your trust; until then, take pronouncements on YouTube or other platforms with the proverbial grain of salt.