Insights

Many Canadians have children who are nearing the end of their post secondary education, and they may be holding onto RESP account balances and wondering what they should be doing with them?   For example, their child’s education costs may have been less than they anticipated, their student may have saved through part time work while they were in school, or they may have received scholarships and bursaries that more than covered their education costs.  In this video I’m going to walk through some of the options to effectively use up leftover RESP account balances.

In this video, I am going to walk through the exact process that I step through with clients who are considering hiring me as their financial planner. I will step through the documents that I review, the discussions that we have, and the deliverable that every client gets before they make any decisions. I will outline the main components of a retirement financial plan, the criteria that you should use to measure how good or bad a retirement plan is, and to give you an idea of what it might look like to get started working with me.

In today's episode, I answer your questions, including answers to the following: 1) CPP vs OAS deferral 2) Income investment strategies 3) Inflation 4) RRSP or TFSA for children - which one is better? 5) TFSA's in Retirement 6) RRSP Meltdowns

On April 16 the Minister of Finance delivered the 2024 Federal Budget in the House of Commons. The budget contained a long list of new spending initiatives and also included new tax measures that will have a big impact on individual Canadians and businesses. In this video I am going to focus on several items in the budget that I believe will have an impact specifically for retirees and their families. 1. The New Capital Gains inclusion rates 2. Amendments to the Home Buyers Plan 3. New RESP rules 4. Automatic Tax Filing 5. My personal thoughts on the budget to close

In today’s videos I am going to briefly outline different types of life insurance, why insurance is sometimes misused, good reasons for retirees to hold life insurance and some not so good reasons that people hold life insurance in retirement.

The Ontario Securities Commission surveyed 1500 Canadians age 50 and older about retirement. Their findings report was nearly 100 slides long and provides insights into several key topics for both retirees and soon-to-be retirees. I went through the report and pulled out the most eye-opening findings.

You’ve got 5 years until retirement at age 65, but you have the opportunity to begin taking CPP payments now at age 60. You don’t need the money to live on, but you are wondering if you should take the money from CPP and invest it with the hopes that you can do better in the long run. In this video I am going to walk through this decision for our sample retiree couple – Johnny and Janey. We will look at the impact that taking CPP early and investing the money has on their retirement plan. And we’ll close the video with discussing some reasons why you may consider taking CPP as early as age 60.

I have met with hundreds of retirees and soon to be retirees in my years working as a financial planner. This channel is focused on answering questions and providing strategies that will help you as you navigate through retirement. In this video, I share a list of the top questions that I get from people who are approaching retirement and now I address them.

Whenever retirees hear the word “probate” they immediately feel the urge to avoid it at all costs. This may cause them to take steps that they believe are harmless and will allow them to avoid this process. Commonly, one of these steps is adding their adult children as joint owners on their bank accounts and some investment accounts. The idea being that they can continue to enjoy the assets while they are alive, they can get their kids’ help managing the assets as they age, and when they eventually pass away, those assets can go around the estate. But what many retirees don’t understand is the risks and issues that they are taking on when they make these changes.

The Canada Dental Care Plan is now rolling out to more Canadians, including Canadian seniors and retirees. And in this video, I'm going to talk about who can apply to the Canada Dental Care Benefit as of January 2024, what the timelines are for the plan to be rolled out to more Canadians as the spring wears on, what the process is to apply, what you can expect in terms of coverage, and the action steps you can take if you want to make yourself available to the Canada dental care plan.