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.

Retirement Reflections Entering our 25th year of Financial Independence

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Billy and Akaisha Kaderli

By Billy and Akaisha Kaderli

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

In January we began our 25th year of Financial Independence. Few people can say they have 24 years of self-funded retirement by age of 62, and have a higher net worth after spending and inflation than when they started. This is something of which we are quite proud.

As we have aged one thing we have learned is that the long term is getting shorter every day. Life is to be enjoyed now, not someday – the older we get, the more we appreciate that view. Life is continuously full of opportunities and we want to take them.

Opportunities abound

retirement_reflections7For example, last year we were approached by a startup company that sponsored us for several months in Saigon, Vietnam. Continue Reading…

Weekly Wrap: We ARE saving enough for retirement; CPP & Social Security Redux, frugal millionaires

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Malcolm Hamilton at MoneySense’s fall Retiring Rich event

Retired actuary and retirement guru Malcolm Hamilton this week released a C.D. Howe paper entitled Do Canadians Save Too Little? The Hub’s initial take ran Thursday here: It’s an exaggeration to say we are saving too little for retirement.

Hamilton also wrote a summary of the paper in the FP Comment section of the Financial Post on Thursday, bearing the title False pension assumptions on Canadian savings.

We at the Hub have always said frugality is the key to saving and ultimately building wealth. But according to the most-emailed New York Times article this week, it’s tough for millionaires to dump the frugal habits that got them there: Millionaires who are frugal when they don’t have to be.  Shades of the book, The Millionaire Next Door!

More (much more!) on Voluntary CPP Continue Reading…

Voluntary CPP is an old idea … has its time finally come?

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Jean-Pierre Laporte (Linked In)

By Jean-Pierre Laporte

Special to the Financial Independence Hub 

Much ink has already been spilled since Minister of Finance Oliver rose in the House of Commons on May 26th to announce that the federal government was open to the idea of allowing additional voluntary contributions to the Canada Pension Plan, in order to give Canadians yet another avenue to save for their retirement.

Pundits and pension experts have since wondered what this new policy initiative would look like when fully fleshed out. The details provided by the Hon. Oliver have been scant except to say that employers would not be forced to contribute to the Supplemental Canada Pension Plan (S/CPP for a lack of a better acronym).

The S/CPP policy announcement comes at critical time, as the Ontario government is refining its own proposed CPP expansion initiative known as the Ontario Retirement Pension Plan ( ORPP ). The ORPP is a mandatory extension of the CPP for all workers not otherwise exempted because they work for a federal employer, or participate in a ‘comparable’ pension plan like a defined benefit plan. The ORPP was Ontario’s reaction to the lack of willingness on the part of the Harper government to impose a mandatory increase to the basic CPP benefit.

Foundation laid in 2004

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Conscious Clients don’t put Retirement plans at Risk

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Doug Dahmer

By Doug Dahmer, Emeritus Retirement Income Specialists

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

One of the most exciting and rewarding aspects of my job is working with my clients as they learn what I call ‘Conscious living.’ It’s a skill that has tremendous impact on their quality of life and their retirement plan.

My ‘Conscious’ clients have a retirement plan and clearly defined goals. They know what they want to do, when they want to do them and how big they want to do them. They also have the tools to explore the implication of each financial decision or potential alteration to their plan. And they understand the future impact that an ill-considered, near-term expenditure will create – in most cases putting some element of their goals and retirement plan at risk. Continue Reading…

The 6 stages of Financial Independence

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Sales funnel. Marketing or Business ChartBy Jonathan Chevreau

The Financial Independence Hub

I’ve been doing lots of reading lately about a new stage of life between MidLife and traditional Retirement. You can read the details in Marc Freedman’s The Big Shift, which confirmed what I’ve been slowly piecing together since my career change this time last year.

The  Financial Independence Hub organizes blogs in six categories that are quite similar to the Ages & Stages that MoneySense has long espoused, both in its articles and in its Special Interest Publication, Guide to Retiring Wealthy. You can find these six blog categories in the horizontal grey band that appears below the horizontal blue band at the top of the Hub’s home page.

Ages & Stages: The Life Cycle approach to Investing

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