Tag Archives: Retirement

Inflation in Retirement

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By Billy Kaderli, RetireEarlyLifestyle.com

Special to the Findependence Hub

First things first, what is inflation? Inflation is when too much money is competing for a finite number of goods. This causes a general increase in prices and a fall in the purchasing value of money.

The US Real-Estate market is a prime example, and we have all witnessed the rising home values. Translate this to food and energy, and this is the effect we are feeling today.

Current inflation numbers

Recent inflation numbers came in at 8.5% year-over-year. The producer price index (PPI) came in higher at 11.2% which means it is costing more for the producers to manufacture products.

These increases get passed on to you and me, the consumers, and we are going to be feeling these increases now and on into the future.

How can you protect yourselves in retirement?

Perhaps you are living on a fixed income such as Social Security. [or in Canada: CPP and Old Age Security.]  Your annual Social Security adjustment doesn’t keep up with grocery and fuel costs; thus, you are slipping backwards.

This is not a good position to be in.

One answer is to own equities. Continue Reading…

Can you retire using just your TFSA?

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Image Courtesy of Cashflows & Portfolios

By Mark and Joe

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

The opportunity for Canadians to save and invest tax-free over decades could be considered one of the greatest wonders of our modern financial world. This begs an important question:

If you start early enough – Can you retire using just your TFSA?

We believe so and in today’s post we’ll show you how!

Can you retire using just your TFSA? Why the TFSA is a gift for all Canadians!

Our Canadian government introduced TFSAs in 2009 as a way to encourage people to save money. Looking back, it was one of the best incentives ever created for Canadian savers …

Our Canada Revenue Agency has a HUGE library of TFSA links and resources to check out but we’ll help you cut to the chase along answering that leading question above:

Can you retire using just your TFSA?

Why the TFSA is just so good

Since the TFSA was introduced, adult Canadians have had a tremendous opportunity to save and grow their wealth tax-free like never before. While the TFSA is similar to a Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) there are some notable differences.

As with an RRSP, the TFSA is intended to help Canadians save money and plan for future expenses. The contributions you make to your TFSA are with after-tax dollars and withdrawals are tax-free. You can carry forward any unused contributions from year to year. There is no lifetime contribution limit.

For savvy investors who open and use a self-directed TFSA for their investments, these investors can realize significant gains within this account.  This means one of the best things about the TFSA is that there is no tax on investment income, including capital gains!

How good is that?!

Here is a summary of many great TFSA benefits:

  • Capital gains and other investment income earned inside a TFSA are not taxed.
  • Withdrawals from the account are tax-free.
  • Neither income earned within a TFSA nor withdrawals from it affect eligibility for federal income-tested benefits and credits (such as Old Age Security (OAS)). This is very important!!
  • Anything you withdraw from your TFSA can be re-contributed in the following year, in addition to that year’s contribution limit, although we don’t recommend that. More in a bit.
  • While you cannot contribute directly as you could with an RRSP, you can give your spouse or common-law partner money to put into their TFSA.
  • TFSA assets could be transferable to the TFSA of a spouse or common-law partner upon death. This makes the TFSA an outstanding estate management account – leaving TFSA assets “until the end” can be very tax-smart.

Since you paid tax on the money you put into your TFSA, you won’t have to pay anything when you take money out. This feature combined with the ability to compound money, tax-free, over decades, can make the TFSA one of the best ways to build wealth for retirement.

RRSP vs. TFSA – which one is better?

There is no shortage of blog posts that highlight this debate and one of our favourites is from My Own Advisor. You can check out his post here. 

Without stealing too much of his thunder, the RRSP vs. TFSA debate essentially comes down to this: managing the RRSP-generated refund.

Let’s dive deeper with a quick example.

Contributions to the RRSP are excellent because the contribution you make today lowers your taxable income – and you may get a tax refund because of it – a pretty nice formula. The problem is, some Canadians might spend the RRSP-generated refund from their contribution. You’ll see why this is a major problem.

Consider working in the higher 40% tax bracket whereby RRSP contributions to lower your taxable income make great sense:

  • If you put $300 per month into the RRSP for the year, that’s a nice $3,600 contribution.
  • You’ll get a $1,440 refund (40% of $3,600).

When your $1,440 RRSP-generated refund comes in, and now you decide to spend it on a new iPhone, just know that your RRSP refund is effectively borrowed government money. Yup, a long-term loan from the government they are going to come back for. If you always spend your refund you are undermining the effectiveness of RRSPs because you are giving up your government loan that would otherwise be used for tax-deferred growth.  A refund associated with your RRSP contribution should not be considered a financial windfall but the present value of future tax payment you must make.

If you typically spend the RRSP-generated refund in our example then we think some Canadians are FAR better off prioritizing your TFSA over your RRSP because of the known benefits of that present-day contribution.  

TFSAs offer tax-free growth for any income earner

At some point, the money that comes out of your RRSP (or Registered Retirement Income Fund (RRIF)) will be taxed.

With TFSAs, the government has eliminated the guesswork about taxation. Because the TFSA is like the RRSP, but in reverse (you don’t get any tax break on the TFSA contribution), TFSA withdrawals are tax-free.

For far more details including answering dozens of questions about this account, read on about our comprehensive TFSA post below:

If you haven’t contributed much towards your retirement and/or you can’t possibly save enough with so many competing financial priorities – that’s OK – striving to max out your TFSA contributions each year, every year, is still very valuable and admirable goal. In fact, focusing diligently on just maxing out your TFSA (and ignoring the RRSP account entirely) will still serve your retirement plan well.

Regardless of your income, any Canadian who is 18 years of age or older with a valid social insurance number (SIN) can open a TFSA. All you need to do is reach out to a financial institution, credit union or insurance company that offers TFSAs and open an account.

Whether you set up your automatic savings plan to your TFSA weekly, monthly, or other – striving to make the maximum contributions to this account can be a significant wealth-building tool as part of the Four Keys to Investing Success. 

Let’s use a case study to demonstrate just how good this account can be for you too – and why you can retire just using your TFSA!

Can you retire using just your TFSA – A Case Study

The big question in his article is – given enough time (ie. if you start young enough), can someone retire using only their TFSA?  The answer may surprise you, at least it surprised us!

To help accurately model this scenario to account for government benefits, inflation, taxes, tax credits, and optimized withdrawal schedules, we dove into the software that we are using to manage our own early retirement plans.

Here are the assumptions we made: Continue Reading…

Rethinking the 4% Safe Withdrawal Rate

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By Fritz Gilbert, TheRetirementManifesto

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

The 4% safe withdrawal rule is a well-known “rule of thumb” for those planning for retirement.

One thing it has going for it is that it’s simple to apply.

If you have $1 Million, the 4% safe withdrawal rule says you can spend $40,000 (4% of $1M) in year one of retirement, increase your spending by the rate of inflation each year, and you’ll never run out of money.

Simple, indeed.

But, I’d argue that simplicity comes at a potentially very serious cost.  Like, potentially running out of money in retirement.

Today, I’ll present my argument against the 4% safe withdrawal rule given our current economic situation, and propose 3 modifications I’d recommend as you determine how much you can safely spend in retirement.

Rethinking the 4% Safe Withdrawal Rule

I read a lot of information on retirement planning, and lately, I’ve been seeing more content challenging the 4% safe withdrawal rule.  I agree with those concerns and felt a post outlining my position was warranted.

As a brief background, the 4% Safe Withdrawal Rule is based on the “Trinity Study,” which appeared in this original article by William Bergen in the February 1998 issue of the Journal of the American Association of Individual Investors.  For further background, here’s an article that Wade Pfau published on the study.  I’ll save you the details, you can study them for yourself at the links provided.

The conclusion, based on the study, is summarized below:

“Assuming a minimum requirement of 30 years of
portfolio longevity, a first-year withdrawal of 4 percent,
followed by inflation-adjusted withdrawals in
subsequent years, should be safe.”

My Concerns With The 4% Safe Withdrawal Rule

In short, some key factors about the study are relevant, especially as we “Rethink The 4% Safe Withdrawal Rule”

  • It’s based on historical market performance from 1926 – 1992.  

My Concern:  Relying on past performance to predict future returns can mislead the investor, especially given the unique valuations in today’s markets (more on that below).  This point is driven home by this recent Vanguard article that projects future returns based on current market valuations:

4% safe withdrawal rule assumptions

If you think the Vanguard outlook is depressing, check out this forecast from GMO as presented in this Wealth of Common Sense article titled “The Worst Stock and Bond Returns Ever”:

stock and bond forecast

  • Note the VG forecast is nominal (before inflation) whereas the GMO is real (after inflation).

Why Are Future Returns Expected to Be Below Average?

The biggest driver for the projected below-average returns is the high valuation in today’s equity market (particularly in the USA), and the fact that interest rate increases would negatively impact bond yield.  In my view the CAPE Ratio is one of the best indicators of market valuations.  Below is the current CAPE ratio as I write this post on November 16, 2021:

CAPE Ratio

The reason current valuations matter is the fact that they’re highly correlated to future returns, as indicated from this concerning chart that I saw last weekend on cupthecrapinvesting:

CAPE ratio correlation to future returns

Based on today’s CAPE ratio, the historical correlation suggests the forward total returns over the next 10 years could be close to 0%.  Scary stuff for someone who’s planning on equity growth to pay for their retirement expenses.  Scary stuff for someone who’s committed to the 4% safe withdrawal rule.

In addition to the bearish outlook for US equities, bonds could be negatively impacted if when interest rates increase.  To get a sense of how low the US 10-year Treasury yields are now compared to long-term averages, below is the current chart of 10-year yields from CNBC:

4% safe withdrawal rate rule - bond impact

Bond prices are inversely related to interest rates, so as rates go up, bond prices go down.  So, if you’re holding 60% stocks and 40% bonds, it’s possible that you could see decreases in both asset classes.

As cited in this Marketwatch article, The Fed has begun signaling that interest rates are “on the table” for 2022, especially if the current bout of inflation proves to be less than a transitory event (for the record, I suspect it will be more than transitory, but what do I know?).

This brings us to the next concern …

My Other Big Concern With The 4% Safe Withdrawal Rule:

In addition to my concern above (the risk of an extended period of below-average market returns), I don’t like the part of the rule which states you should “increase your spending the following year based on the rate of inflation.”  As most of you know, inflation has been on a bit of a tear lately, as demonstrated in this chart from usinflationcalculator.com:

Based on the 4% Safe Withdrawal Rule, you would be increasing spending next year based on the higher inflation rate, which could well be the same time you’re seeing lower than expected returns.

I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sit well with me.

Suggested Modifications to the 4% Safe Withdrawal Rule

It wouldn’t be fair to cite my concerns with the 4% Safe Withdrawal Rule without suggesting an alternative. Following are the 3 modifications I’d suggest for your consideration.  I’m applying all 3 of these modifications in our personal retirement strategy. Continue Reading…

When did Retirement Income Planning get so complicated?

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Photo by Gustavo Fring from Pexels

By Ian Moyer

(Sponsor Content)

Retirement planning used to be easy: you simply applied for your government benefits and your company pension at age 65. So, when did it get so complicated?

Things started to change in 2007 when pension splitting came into effect. While we did have Canada Pension Plan (CPP) sharing before that, not too many people took advantage of it. Then Tax Free Savings Accounts (TFSA) came along in 2009. At first you could only deposit small amounts into your TFSA, but in 2015 the contribution limit went to $10,000 (it’s since been reduced to $6,000 per year). Accounts that had been opened in 2009 were building in value, and the market was rebounding from the 2008 downturn. Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) dollars were now competing with TFSA dollars and people had to choose where they were going to put their retirement money.

In 2015 or 2016 financial planners suddenly started paying attention to how all of these assets (including income properties) were interconnected. There were articles about downsizing, succession planning, and selling the family cottage. This information got people thinking about their different sources of retirement income and which funds they should draw down first.

Of course, there is more to consider, such as the Old Age Security (OAS) clawback. When, where, and how much could this affect your retirement planning? People selling their business are often surprised that their OAS is clawed back in the year they sell the business, even if they’re eligible for the capital gains exemption. Not to mention what you need to do to leave some money behind for your loved ones. Even with all this planning, the fact that we pay so much tax when we die is never discussed, although the final tax bill always seems to be the elephant in the room. We just ignore it, and hope it’ll go away.

Income Tax doesn’t disappear at 65

Unfortunately, income tax doesn’t disappear at age 65, and you need time to plan ahead so you can reduce the amount of tax you pay in retirement. A good way to do this is to use a specialized software that takes all your sources of income and figures out the best strategy to get the most out of your retirement funds. Continue Reading…

Target Date Retirement ETFs

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Image licensed by Evermore from Adobe

By Myron Genyk

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

Over the years, many close friends and family have come to me for guidance on how to become DIY (do-it-yourself) investors, and how to think about investing.

My knowledge and experience lead me to suggest that they manage a portfolio of a few low-fee, index-based ETFs, diversified by asset class and geography.  Some family members were less adept at using a computer, let alone a spreadsheet, and so, after they became available, I would suggest they invest in a low-fee asset allocation ETF.

What would almost always happen several months later is that, as savings accumulated or distributions were paid, these friends and family would ask me how they should invest this new money. We’d look at how geographical weights may have changed, as well as their stock/bond mix, and invest accordingly.  And for those in the asset allocation ETFs, there would inevitably be a discussion about transitioning to a lower risk fund.

DIY investors less comfortable with Asset Allocation

After a few years of doing this, I realized that although most of these friends and family were comfortable with the mechanics of DIY investing (opening a direct investing account, placing trades, etc.) they were much less comfortable with the asset allocation process.  I also realized that, as good a sounding board as I was to help them, there were millions of Canadians who didn’t have easy access to someone like me who they could call at any time.

Clearly, there was a looming issue.  How can someone looking to self-direct their investments, but with little training, be expected to sensibly invest for their retirement?  What would be the consequences to them if they failed to do so?  What would be the consequences for us as a society if thousands or even millions of Canadians failed to properly invest for retirement?  

What are Target Date Funds?

The vast majority of Canadians need to save and invest for retirement.  But most of these investors lack the time, interest, and expertise to construct a well-diversified and efficient portfolio with the appropriate level of risk over their entire life cycle.  Target date funds were created specifically to address this issue: they are one-ticket product solutions that help investors achieve their retirement goals. This is why target date funds are one of the most common solutions implemented in employer sponsored plans, like group RRSPs (Registered Retirement Savings Plans).

Generally, most target date funds invest in some combination of stocks, bonds, and sometimes other asset classes, like gold and other commodities, or even inflation-linked bonds.  Over time, these funds change their asset allocation, decreasing exposure to stocks and adding to bonds.  This gradually changing asset allocation is commonly referred to as a glide path.

Glide paths ideal for Retirement investing

Glide paths are ideal for retirement investing because of two basic principles.  First, in the long run, historically and theoretically in the future, stocks tend to outperform bonds – the so-called equity risk premium – which generally pays long-term equity investors higher returns than long-term bond investors in exchange for accepting greater short-term volatility (the uncertain up and down movements in returns).  Second, precisely because of the greater short-term uncertainty of stock returns relative to bond returns, older investors who are less able to withstand short-term volatility should have less exposure to stocks and more in less risky asset classes like bonds than younger investors. Continue Reading…