Tag Archives: Financial Independence

Should you help your Adult Children get out of Debt?

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doug
Doug Hoyes

By Douglas Hoyes

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

We have all heard the expression “once a parent, always a parent,” so it’s not surprising that you may want to help your adult children with their financial problems.

A young adult may be burdened with student loans and other debts, and may have not yet had success in the job market. As a senior adult, perhaps having already achieved Findependence, is it wise to financially help your adult children?

The first question to consider is: will giving them money truly help them? You won’t be around forever, so at some point your offspring must learn to fend for themselves. Letting them deal with their financial problems now, on their own, while you are still around to provide moral support may be in their long-term best interests.

Such assistance could jeopardize your own financial security

Of greater concern is that financially assisting your adult children could jeopardize your own financial security.

In my firm’s recent Joe Debtor study we discovered that, of people who go bankrupt, seniors and pre-retirement debtors have the highest levels of unsecured debt of all age groups. If the only way you can help your children is by going into debt yourself, you put yourself at risk for serious financial problems. Continue Reading…

Sudden Retirement Syndrome (SRS)

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'Mr. Bennett has left the firm abruptly'By Michael Drak

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

Sudden retirement syndrome is not a real medical condition as far as I’m aware but for me it best describes the shock of withdrawal that occurs when a person leaves their corporate job.

This can occur through either downsizing, formal retirement or can even occur when a person is leaving after many years spent with the Corp to do something else.

The shock from going unprepared from a busy work-life to nothing can be very stressful and in extreme cases can even result in premature death. We all have heard stories of people in retirement who lost their motivation to do much of anything, started drinking heavily, and died within a short time.

I’ve known quite a few people who have suffered from SRS. My father suffered through it, a close friend died because of it, and I even had a taste of it after leaving my corporate job of 36 years — which is crazy in itself because I already had a game plan in place for my next move. I clearly remember the ringing in my ears, the feeling of uncertainty, the feeling of living in a fog for a period of time. It’s hard to break away from something that has become a piece of you over the years.

It’s important to note that not everyone will suffer from SRS. People who are able to detach themselves successfully from work when they walk out the door are usually spared. An example would be an assembly line person who is able to leave their job when the whistle blows and not think about work until the next day. While an assembly line worker may be burned out physically and mentally, as they are not challenged intellectually, the Corp does not own their soul, unlike corporate executives who are linked to their work 24/7 and whose self-identity is tied to the job that just ended.

Retirement shock can be hell

Continue Reading…

“Stop Doing” #5: Stop Overpacking for Your Financial Journey

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stevelowrie
Steve Lowrie

By Steve Lowrie, Lowrie Financial

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

We still haven’t finished our list of financial “STOP Doing” tips. In fact, the list may well be endless, given the endless supply of popular financial products and promotions continuously appearing, disappearing and reemerging, each one allegedly new & improved.

It’s no wonder so many individual investors end up with so much excess baggage along the way. This month’s post is dedicated to making sense of all those competing investment “opportunities” with our simple advice: STOP overpacking for your financial journey.

During my years as an adviser, most of my clients have come to me weighed down by the volume and complexity of their overly packed portfolios. They desperately want to lighten the load, but they’re unsure what should be preserved and what can be safely jettisoned.

I’ve generally found three areas to focus on, helping clients lighten up after years of stocking up, keeping up, and/or moving up. Raise your hand if any or all of these traits sound familiar to you:

Stocking up

You’ve been knocking around Bay Street for a while and have accumulated quite a packed portfolio. Continue Reading…

A Simple Way To Boost Your Retirement Savings

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pay yourself first, a reminder of personal finance strategy - stack of colorful sticky notes on a cork bulletin boardBy Robb Engen, Boomer & Echo

Special to the Financial Independence Hub 

One of the core tenets of financial planning is to pay yourself first.  Automating your savings is a painless way to save for retirement and, in all likelihood, you’ll barely notice that you’re living on less.

Most experts suggest putting away 10 per cent of your income for retirement, but that number might seem out of reach for many people today.  The key to developing good savings habits, however, is that you need to start somewhere.

That’s why I suggest setting aside what you can afford, be it three or five per cent of your income, and try to increase that amount every year.

Small changes lead to big improvements

Continue Reading…

Weekly Wrap: The Market’s near-death experience, magazine reverse indicators, the options of frugality

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screen shot 2015-08-27 at 9.14.03 amThe 1,000+ point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average Monday morning will long be remembered by investors but, unless you sold everything at market prices in a panic that morning, those that just sat it out (or meditated, as we suggested that morning) were fine by week’s end. You can find a nice recap of the market’s near-death experience in this WSJ article, complete with charts:   U.S. stock swings don’t shake investors.

Still, the scary start to the week was enough for one magazine to create the cover shown to the left. In what some bulls interpreted as a “reverse indicator,” the current cover story of  Bloomberg Businessweek features not just one but several bears on its cover.

In a commentary on that phenomenon, Business Insider’s Myles Udland noted that the market often does the opposite of what magazine cover indicators may be suggesting, which would make a bear cover bullish. Remember, Business Week famously proclaimed The Death of Equities in a cover in 1979, triggering a multi-year bull run.

China & other submerging markets

Mid-week rallies aside, one reason for the continued bearishness is China and other Emerging(“Submerging?”) Markets. One of Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s accompanying stories was entitled Will the Next Recession be Made in China? It noted that after Monday morning’s 1,000 point-plus drop, all markets seemed to be correlated: that “the world suddenly seemed like a very small place.” Continue Reading…