Tag Archives: Financial Independence

Vinnie the Loan Shark: Citizen of the Year

Posted By |
Depositphotos_3775528_s-2015
Vinnie the Loan Shark (DepositPhotos).

By Horst Siegler

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

The most important definitions are not found in the dictionary; they are the ones you make for yourself to serve your purposes.

You first encountered this idea when your mother told you to clean your room. When you thought you were done she made you clean it some more. The problem was not with the room; the problem was she had a different idea of what a clean room meant (it didn’t mean shove everything under the bed or into the closet and close the door). Besides, you wanted to get outside to play and she wanted the room tidy.

In a posting titled How Findependence differs from Retirement, Jonathan Chevreau makes a case for how he believes the two words are different and why. He argues that you might be financially independent before you retire because you no longer work for a salary. Some who retire need to continue to work because their income doesn’t meet their needs. His definitions for the words are his own.

Credit cards as “survival tools”

Continue Reading…

A Quiz: What don’t you know about planning for a financially healthy Retirement?

Posted By |

relax on beachBy Patricia Gass

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

The younger we are, the tougher it is to get our heads around retirement planning.

And rightly so. It’s the last thing we care about when we’re in the midst of life:  fresh out of school, starting a family or dealing with moody teenagers.

Instead of thinking “retirement,” why not dream about the wonderful world of “financial freedom?”

A time when we no longer need to work for a paycheque. When we’re free to follow our passions without regard to their earnings potential. Imagine being able to spend time doing what really matters at any age? Who doesn’t want the incredible feeling of true financial independence?

Below is the fourth quiz in my series Tackling Personal Finance — Do You Know What You Don’t Know? Continue Reading…

Have advertisers put a spell on you?

Posted By |

Teenage wizard girl with magic wand casting spells in a enchanted fantasy forest

By Michael Drak

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

“Advertising is the art of convincing people to spend money they don’t have on things they don’t need.”

— Will Rogers

Recently the Contessa (my wife) and I went to see the Bette Midler show and at the unbelievable age of 69 she put on one heck of a performance. She still has it and had us laughing when she was poking fun at herself singing I Look Good and I Still Have my Health.

This was followed by a standup comedy routine in which she threw her usual zingers into the crowd. “I still look good, but I don’t know what happened to some of you,” she teased. “It’s 50 shades of grey in this section right here. I don’t know whether to sing to you or tell you something about reverse mortgages.”

At one point in the performance she came out dressed as the witch character from her 1993 film Hocus Pocus and sang one of my favourite songs,  I Put a Spell on You.

Which brings me back to the subject of this article.

Honey, I think our computer is possessed!

Continue Reading…

Weekly Wrap: Semi-retirement, Mini-Retirements, RVing & Variants

Posted By |

SAMSUNG CSCThe current issue of MoneySense features my Financial Independence column, with the current instalment being an update on the “semi-retired” first year of my personal Findependence: What semi-retirement is really like.

Do a search on semi-retirement and/or financial independence and you’ll find plenty more articles on this theme. For instance, in February, the Afford Anything blog ran a piece titled Mini-Retirements, Semi-Retirement, Early Retirement — What’s the Most Awesome Lifestyle? There are some interesting variants in the piece, such as “Perpetual Semi-Retirement.”

Back in April, The Toronto Star and other media ran stories like this one: Semi-retirement the new normal in Canada: Survey. The Hub also weighed in on the survey, noting that 15% plan never to fully retire, but many will embrace Semi-Retirement.

Way back, the Get Rich Slowly blog ran this reader story about Making the Move to Semi-Retirement. Note the reference to the classic book about Financial Independence, Your Money or Your Life, which is all about the tradeoffs between time/life energy and money. Recommended reading for anyone interested in Findependence!

The RV has replaced the rocking chair

51PY175FY8L._SY300_
Amazon.com

Continue Reading…

5 Asian locations where retirement is more affordable than North America

Posted By |

book-cover-finalBy Jonathan Chevreau

Financial Independence Hub

I’ve personally never travelled to southeast Asia, although my family has and my daughter currently is posted in Hong Kong for a one-year teaching gig. As a result, I was more than usually interested when a review copy came in the mail titled Planet Boomer: Retire now for less in Southeast Asia.

It’s written by a boomer Canadian couple, Jim Herrier and Ellen Ma, who left marketing and advertising positions in 2006 to move to Singapore and Shanghai, then researched a bunch of other locations to help them write the book.

The book is slated for release in mid-August.

Asia 50% more affordable than North America

The pair argue that the financial crisis of 2008-2009 battered the investment portfolios of many Canadian boomers, and that “the math of a comfortable retirement for many of the nearly 10 million Canadians between 44 and 64 is not working anymore.” On average, those boomers are $400,000 short of their ideal retirement savings goal. Most of the 15 destinations in five Southeast Asian countries are at least 50% more affordable than Canada or the United States. Continue Reading…