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Six tips to make Travelling easier

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Billy & Akaisha Kaderli

By Billy and Akaisha Kaderli

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

Travelling is challenging enough with all one has to think about: getting the best price on airline tickets, arranging for lodging reservations, and being sure your passport is up-to-date with no expiration in the next six months. Who will watch your home, pets and garden while you are away?

Then there’s packing.

Are you one of those people who packs everything just in case you might need it? Or you pack something because you like it, even if it’s not seasonally appropriate and goes with nothing else in your bag?

The following tips can help you bring order to packing chaos.

1.) Days before you leave, make a list of what you essentially need for your trip and add to that list as you think of items. Then when you pack, you can confidently check off your list instead of relying on memory and being anxious about forgetting something.

2.) When you travel, wear heavy clothes like your jacket on the plane, including your heaviest shoes. Pack lighter footwear in your luggage. Shoes are the heaviest items, so pack fewer of them and make do. Continue Reading…

Which investments are best inside and outside RRSPs

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As we stated in an earlier article on RRSPs (What you need to know to build a productive RRSP) your investments gain doubly in your RRSP. Instead of paying up to 50% of your profit to the government in taxes, you keep 100% of your money working for you.

When you lose, however, you take a double loss. You lose the money you’ve invested as well as the opportunity to have the money grow for years, or even decades, sheltered from taxes.

So don’t use it as a place to find out if you have a talent for stock trading.

Successful investors put only their safest investments in RRSPs. These investments have the greatest potential to increase in value over time and therefore benefit from the RRSP’s continuing protection from taxes.

If these investors indulge in penny stocks, stock options or short-term trading, they do so outside their RRSPs.

If you hold speculative investments like this in an RRSP and they drop, you lose more than the money you invested in them. You also lose the tax-deduction value of a loss outside your RRSP. Outside your RRSP, you can use capital losses to offset taxable capital gains in the current year, the three previous years, or any future year.

If you invest in mutual funds, you have another set of tax concerns. At the end of the year, mutual funds distribute any capital gains they have made during the year, after deducting any capital losses, to their unitholders. So, you may have to pay capital gains taxes on your mutual-fund holdings, even though you haven’t sold.

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How to handle windfalls, inheritances, gifts, estate freezes

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“We should all be concerned about the future because we will have to spend the rest of our lives there.” — Charles F. Kettering (1876–1958), American inventor

Will a lifetime of work help the next generation’s financial security? Let’s imagine.

Boomers and younger generations often receive cash and other financial assets from several sources. Three popular ones come to mind, such as inheritances, gifts and estate freezes. Let’s call them wealth transfers or windfalls. Some are modest while others are substantial. All ought to be much appreciated.

In Canada, the value of transfers is estimated to exceed $1 trillion. Similarly, the US ballpark is likely higher than $10 trillion. These windfalls serve as a welcome boost for ageing boomers. Especially where the nest egg is in need of a little help.

Inheritances consist mostly of family homes, cottages, land, income properties, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, family businesses, cash and term deposits. Gifts typically include cash and equivalents, savings and a variety of deposits. An estate freeze often involves private companies, family businesses, farms, income real estate and family trusts.

Don’t make any snap decisions that cannot be reversed. Don’t sell things you now own or buy anything new, like stocks or real estate.

Receiving a wealth transfer is like winning the lottery. We are human and can fall prey to emotional, spur of the moment decisions. Avoiding the pitfalls of dealing with our exuberant feelings of sudden wealth is not always easy.

No need to rush

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Global Recruitment trends: targeting Millennials with social media

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By Edward Page

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

Today’s fast-paced and growing technology is indeed changing the world, especially in the business world, by contributing undeniable implications to businesses including workforce recruitment and employment.

With these advancements, a lot of relevant changes have taken place. Recruitment processes and systems have been greatly affected through this generation’s technological breakthroughs, as more employers and applicants have been relying on social media for their job searches.

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100 Kilometers per Hour to Full Stop!

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By Heather Compton 

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

You’re busy!  You’ve been diligently advancing your career, paying bills, raising kids and saving for retirement.  Lots of your available life hours spent grooming for, travelling to or toiling away at work.

Now fast forward to your first day of retirement — nowhere to be; no need to get out of your bathrobe or into the car.  For some that sounds like nirvana; for others, their worst nightmare. Even nirvana wears thin if it’s a steady diet with no variety.

The shift from active work-life to part-time work or full-time retirement is one of the important tasks of mid-and-later life.  Psychologists speak of it as a transition, and like other life transitions it brings both bumps and bonuses. Imagine adjusting, as one of my clients put it, to “twice as much husband on half as much income!”

What’s Next?

What comes next? You may need to reclaim or rediscover yourself.  You’ve defined yourself as parent, partner and businessperson and now you’re “out of work” on two fronts – kids grown plus the job has flown.  Where does your routine, sense of purpose, identity and social engagement come from?

A rockin’ retirement isn’t a given, it’s an intention.  A rich life is a goal worth meeting, but it takes focus that goes far beyond your net worth statement.

A Life with Style

At the core of virtually all measures of life-satisfaction is your state of health.  Now you are driving an older vehicle, one where replacement parts don’t function as well as the factory originals. Creating a vehicle-maintenance schedule becomes your new job.

The World Health Organization describes health as, “a state of physical, mental and social well-being.” That requires a focus on all aspects of your health – financial, physical, emotional, mental and spiritual well-being.

Begin Again

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