Tag Archives: Retirement

Fritz Gilbert on why he’s Retiring from full-time blogging about Retirement

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By Fritz Gilbert, TheRetirementManifesto

Special to Financial Independence Hub 

 

On April 12, 2015, I wrote my first post on this blog.

  • A decade of writing.
  • 441 articles.
  • 1 Million Words.

Wow.

It’s been a heckuva ride. I’m in awe that over 16,000 of you subscribe to my blog and read what I write (a sincere “Thank You!” to all of you).  It’s an honor, and I take it seriously.  In that very first post, I wrote the following:

“This is the story of my journey, told in The Present before it becomes The Past.”

I’ve always liked that sentence, and it’s become one of my goals with this blog.  To share my journey, as I’m living it, with the hope that sharing my experiences will help others achieve a great retirement.

At this point in my journey, I feel I’ve accomplished that goal.

As I seek to continually experiment with my retirement lifestyle, I challenge myself to embrace the freedom these years offer. Sometimes it’s hard, and today is one of those days.  As that journey has evolved, it’s reached the point where it’s led to a major decision for this blog.

That decision?

I’m retiring from full-time blogging.

But…I’m getting ahead of myself.  To gain insight into my decision and what it means for this blog, read on…

I’m retiring from full-time blogging. Today, the story behind my decision, and my plans for the future… Share on X

Shifting Gears after 10 years of Blogging

I’ve known a lot of bloggers over the past decade, most of whom have faded away. That’s not a surprise, given that 80% of blogs fail to survive beyond 18 months.

They just … disappear.

One day, you’re reading their stuff, and a few months later, you realize you haven’t seen anything from them in a while.  A year later, they’re all but forgotten.

I’m taking a different approach

As always, I’m being transparent about this phase of my journey, and I’d rather tell you what I’m thinking than have you wonder where I’ve gone. This is my Present, before it becomes my Past.

After 10 years of diligent writing, it’s time to shift gears.  I still enjoy writing, but it’s becoming more of an obligation than the true joy it’s been in the past.  With over 440 articles in my archives, it’s harder to find fresh topics to challenge my mind.  I think less and less about potential topics, a sharp contrast to the earlier years of writing when ideas were constantly flooding my mind.

It’s time to move on

I’ve always encouraged you to remember that Retirement Is Like A Game of Poker, and challenged you to constantly improve the cards you’re holding.  If a card is getting stale, don’t hesitate to exchange it for a new card from the deck.

I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t apply the same advice. The blogging card has gotten a bit stale, so I’m shuffling the deck and putting the cards down for a while.

I hope you’re doing the same.

Never stop experimenting.

Never stop improving your hand

The Future of The Retirement Manifesto

The good news is, this blog isn’t going anywhere.  I have no intention of selling it, and I plan on keeping it online well into the future.  I’ll still write when the urge strikes.

The thing that will change is the frequency of my writing.

After all, I’m retiring from full-time blogging.  😉

I don’t know exactly what that means yet, but I’m going to explore it for a while to see where it leads. I’ve been writing about retirement for a long time, perhaps I’ll use this platform to share thoughts on other topics in the future.  Most likely, I’ll follow the path that Mr. Money Mustache and JL Collins have taken, and write when I feel I have something worthwhile to say.  They both only write a few times a year, but I still read every word.  I hope my readers will do the same for me.

Stay tuned (and please don’t unsubscribe)…

I’m getting busier with other activities that I enjoy, and the blogging card has become more intrusive. I seldom find time to sit at my keyboard, and I’m fine with that.  I prefer to be out… .. Continue Reading…

Retirement Confidence is Crashing: Here’s how Canadians can take back Control

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Image via Pixels: Marcus Aurelius

By Ben McCabe, Bloom Finance

Special to Financial Independence Hub

Over the past year, Canadian seniors have faced rising inflation, high interest rates, and ongoing economic uncertainty, all of which are reshaping what retirement looks and feels like in Canada.

Retirement was once viewed as a time of ease and stability; instead, for many, it now feels like a constant calculation of trade-offs and tough decisions. Recent data paints an unfortunate picture, as retirement confidence is declining fast. Only 36% of Canadians feel confident in their ability to stay financially stable in retirement and just 7% feel very confident, while 27% are not confident at all.

This isn’t about long-term planning gone wrong: it’s about the real-time impacts of economic conditions that have changed dramatically over the last few years. Inflation has outpaced income, and daily essentials like food, utilities, medical care and housing are up nearly 30% over the past three years. However,  there are ways to regain control.

A Shifting Retirement Reality

Many older Canadians are now exploring alternative ways to stretch their resources. For some, that has even meant returning to work:  nearly half (46%) of Canadian homeowners aged 55+ are considering part-time jobs to make ends meet with rising living costs. For others, it means delaying retirement altogether: 67% say they’re concerned their savings won’t sustain the quality of life they had envisioned.

Meanwhile, traditional supports like the Canada Pension Plan, Old Age Security, and personal savings no longer offer the security they once did, especially since many seniors are financially supporting family members. According to another survey, 1 in 3 Canadian grandparents are financially supporting their children or grandchildren, with 53% saying that support has increased over the last two years. With 65% acknowledging that assistance impacts their own retirement savings, it’s clear that seniors are carrying more financial weight than ever.

Taking back Control

In response, seniors are taking steps to regain their financial control. One critical first step is getting a clear understanding of the full financial picture: knowing what money is coming in and what is going out. By distinguishing between “wants” and “needs,” retirees can prioritize essentials like housing, food, healthcare, and look for opportunities to cut back where possible.

Exploring New Solutions

In a financial landscape that is ever-changing, more and more seniors are open to innovative solutions that may not have been part of their initial retirement plans. Three-quarters of Canadian seniors own the homes they live in, and most entered the housing market decades ago. With years of sustained low interest rates and population growth that has outstripped new housing supply, home prices have tripled nationwide in the last 20 years (and more than that in many markets). Continue Reading…

New to a RRIF? Make sure you have enough cash and consider dialing down risk

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My latest MoneySense Retired Money column has just been published and covers something that was a new experience for me: starting and managing a RRIF or Registered Retirement Income Fund.

You can find the full column by clicking on the highlighted headline: How to make sure you have enough money to fund your RRIF withdrawals. 

At the end of the year you turn 71, those with RRSPs are required either to cash them out  (not recommended from the standpoint of taxes), to to annuitize orto convert it into a RRIF, or Registered Retirement Income Fund. The latter is the most popular action and recommended by experts like The Successful Investor’s Patrick McKeough.

            However,  as I’ve discovered since my own RRIF started up this past January, the sweetness of the RRSP tax deduction over the decades is offset by the sourness of having to pay taxable withdrawals on your new RRIF.

            In my case, I am a DIY investor who uses one of the big-bank discount brokers to self-manage the taxable distributions and to manage the remaining investments, most of them carryovers from the RRSP.  While accumulating funds in an RRSP is a matter of making annual contributions and reinvesting dividends and interest, a RRIF represents a departure from the psychology needed to build an RRSP for the future. Suddenly, regular selling is necessary. The RRIF rules mean that in the first year you’ll have to withdraw something like 5.28% of what your balance was at the start of the year (rising to 5.4% at age 72 and every upwards each passing year).

Payments can quarterly, monthly or any frequency you choose

          If you choose monthly payments, as I did, that means every month you have to have 1/12th of the required annual distribution in the form of ready cash to be whooshed out monthly on whatever date you specify. As most retirees will be getting other pensions near the end of the month, I chose mid-month for the RRIF distribution. You also need to choose the percentage of tax you wish to pay to Canada Revenue Agency: I picked 30%, which automatically leaves your account each month. The remaining 70% transfers out into your main chequing account, ideally at the same financial institution where the RRIF is held: It’s easier that way.

Setting regular tax payments

          You also need to choose the percentage of tax you wish to pay to Canada Revenue Agency: I picked 30%, which automatically leaves your account each month. The remaining 70% transfers out into your main chequing account, ideally at the same financial institution where the RRIF is held: It’s easier that way. Sure, you could set the tax at 10% or 20% but if you have other sources of taxable income, like taxable dividends and other pensions, I’d rather not have the unpleasant surprise of a larger-than-expected tax bill a year from April. Once you have a year of RRIFing under your belt, you may see fit to adjust the 30% upwards or downwards. Continue Reading…

Retirement Club for Canadians 

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By Dale Roberts

Special to Financial Independence Hub

Hi, it’s Dale Roberts here. You know me from Cut The Crap Investing. My blog posts are often shared on Findependence Hub. 

Similar to Jonathan Chevreau I have a keen interest in helping Canadians prepare for retirement and make the most of retirement once they reach that wonderful stage in life. 

Too many Canadians enter retirement with some sense of anxiety. They may fear that they will outlast their money. They might not have created the all important life plan. 

More and more Canadians have self-directed their investment accounts. Now they need a resource that helps them set the course, and keep the course for a successful retirement. 

That’s why we created Retirement Club. Retirement Club for Canadians 

What is Retirement Club? 

Retirement Club is a community of like-minded Canadian retirees and near retirees. 

A successful retirement starts with financial security. Let’s call that fiscal fitness. We cover the financial essentials, in jargon-free plain-speak with clear demonstrations. You’ll learn how to spend down your portfolios in an efficient fashion. You’ll learn how to use free-use retirement calculators that create optimal retirement cash flow plans. That is, how to spend from your investment accounts, working in concert with CPP, OAS, pensions, and other income. 

The retirement portfolio will be discussed in detail. We need to align each account’s risk level to the task at hand: dictated by that retirement cash flow plan. 

As you may know, at Cut The Crap Investing I’ve offered a unique approach to managing risk: using lower volatility and defensive equities (consumer staples, healthcare and utilities) in concert with traditional risk managers such as cash, bonds, GICs, gold, annuities and more. During the volatility of 2025, these defensive assets have been the top performers. 

Of course the financial topics are numerous, from wills and estates, to insurance, tax tips, healthcare costs and more.

Retirement by design

Next comes the life plan. Each of us will decide on our level of travel and entertainment, family time, leisure and living life full of purpose. We’ll provide and share lifestyle inspiration. We’re doing it right when financial security enables a rich and rewarding lifestyle. We need to retire with vitality and purpose. How do we replace the ‘good stuff’ we got out of our working years? 

How do we learn and connect? 

At a minimum we’ll have …  

  • A monthly one hour Zoom presentation (the next one is April 25th at noon).
  • A monthly newsletter 

The Zoom presentations are lively and interactive. They start with a learning session but move on with Clubbers asking questions and taking part in break out sessions. We end with a 15 minute ‘after party.’ It’s a Club environment. 

Our Community Captain, Brent Schmidt of Strategic Fuel, l creates an engaging club experience.  Continue Reading…

How to stay calm and Invest confidently amid Stock Market Fluctuations

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Letting unnecessary stock market worries take hold of your investment decisions can lead to much bigger problems than just finding stocks to buy

TSInetwork.ca

Our early ancestors had to be on guard against threats in their environment. They were under constant threat. At night, if you woke to every sound from the bushes, you lost some sleep, but you cut your risk of being eaten by a lion or killed by an enemy. Today we face much less risk from animal predators and human marauders. But many people still carry this hair-trigger fear response. We spend more time than we should worrying about things that will never happen. This includes stock market worries.

That’s especially true of investors, who generally think more about the future than other people. It’s true all the more of subscribers to our newsletters and members of my Inner Circle service.

Understand stock market worries and risk so you can put everything in perspective

That’s because many of you are the kind of people who seek out investment information from a variety of written sources, where it’s much more extensive and detailed than what you get from a glance at the headlines, the evening news or cable TV. However, some of that information is biased, overblown or incorrect.

This doesn’t mean you should ignore potential threats. You just need to put them in perspective.

Learn what experienced investors do about common stock market worries

There is never a shortage of ways to ease your stock market worries. “You never go broke taking a profit,” is a favourite of brokers I’ve met over the years. They used them to spur their clients to do more trades, to boost their own commission income.

Our view now is that stocks are still a good place for your money, if you can afford to stay invested for several years. If you expect you will need to take money out of your portfolio, you should think about selling sooner than you need to.

Look beyond immediate stock market movements to help reduce your anxiety and stock market worries

Stock market trends are the general direction in which the stock market is heading. These market trends are dictated by a number of factors: what sector investors favour at the moment, economic and world news, interest rates and other trends from industries such as technology or resources, and so on. These trends could be positive or negative, and they could lead to a huge boom for a stock market. They could also lead to a big downturn. Continue Reading…