“Welcome to the PlanEasy blog! We make personal finance easy.
Thanks for visiting.”
– Owen
Retirement Rules Of Thumb
Rules of thumb can be great tools when quickly evaluating financial goals and objectives. But not all rules of thumb are good, especially when it comes to retirement.
Some retirement rules of thumb are excellent, while others are misleading. Rules of thumb are great when creating rough financial goals, but they can be too general, and in the worst-case scenario they can be misleading and out of date.
In this blog post we’re going to review three retirement rules of thumb and we’re going to give them a “thumb” rating from 1 to 5. One being complete garbage, never use. And five being just amazing, you can plan your life by this rule.
Does The Average Retirement Plan REALLY Need $1,700,000 To Retire?
In this blog post we’re going to look at an average retirement plan with $1,700,000 in financial assets. Why $1,700,000? Because that’s what a recent bank survey suggested that the average Canadian feels they need to retire.
Now, banks are in the business of selling financial products, so they may be somewhat biased when it comes to how much you should be saving for retirement. They’re probably happy for you save and invest more for retirement because it means more investment fees for them. But let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and let’s see if $1,700,000 is really the right retirement goal for the average Canadian household.
Having done many, many, advice-only retirement plans I suspect that this number is grossly overstated, and a much smaller amount is likely sufficient to have a comfortable retirement for the average household.
To test if this is true, we’re going to build an “average retirement plan” with $1,700,000 in financial assets.
Of course, no retirement plan is ever average. Some people have more CPP, some less. Some people have defined benefit pensions, others do not. Some people want to spend more in retirement while others are content with spending less. There is no such thing as an “average retirement plan” but we’re going to make some broad assumptions to test whether or not $1,700,000 is a reasonable goal for retirement assets or if it’s grossly overstated.
RRSP Deadline: Should You Make An RRSP Contribution This Year?
The RRSP deadline is quickly approaching on March 1st, and you should get ready for advertisements selling you all sorts of RRSP products over the next few weeks. But despite what the advertisements suggest, should you actually make an RRSP contribution this year? Maybe, but maybe not.
In this blog post we’re going to highlight 5 reasons why you SHOULD NOT make an RRSP contribution this year.
As we build financial plans with clients, we sometimes come across situations where RRSP contributions were made to the detriment of the client. The client was in one or more of the situations below, but they were still advised to make RRSP contributions, or they were advised to split contributions between RRSP and TFSA, or sometimes they were not given any tax planning or government benefit advice at all.
Depending on the situation, this has cost a number of clients $10,000’s in extra income tax or reduced government benefits.
So, as the RRSP deadline approaches, watch out for these five situations where RRSP contributions may not be the best option, and always seek the advice of an unbiased advice-only financial planner to create a thorough income tax and government benefit strategy before making $1,000’s in RRSP contributions.
Owen Winkelmolen
Advice-only financial planner, CFP, and founder of PlanEasy.ca
“Welcome to the PlanEasy blog! We make personal finance easy.
Thanks for visiting.”
– Owen
New blog posts weekly!
Tax planning, benefit optimization, budgeting, family planning, retirement planning and more...
Retirement Rules Of Thumb
Rules of thumb can be great tools when quickly evaluating financial goals and objectives. But not all rules of thumb are good, especially when it comes to retirement.
Some retirement rules of thumb are excellent, while others are misleading. Rules of thumb are great when creating rough financial goals, but they can be too general, and in the worst-case scenario they can be misleading and out of date.
In this blog post we’re going to review three retirement rules of thumb and we’re going to give them a “thumb” rating from 1 to 5. One being complete garbage, never use. And five being just amazing, you can plan your life by this rule.
Does The Average Retirement Plan REALLY Need $1,700,000 To Retire?
In this blog post we’re going to look at an average retirement plan with $1,700,000 in financial assets. Why $1,700,000? Because that’s what a recent bank survey suggested that the average Canadian feels they need to retire.
Now, banks are in the business of selling financial products, so they may be somewhat biased when it comes to how much you should be saving for retirement. They’re probably happy for you save and invest more for retirement because it means more investment fees for them. But let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and let’s see if $1,700,000 is really the right retirement goal for the average Canadian household.
Having done many, many, advice-only retirement plans I suspect that this number is grossly overstated, and a much smaller amount is likely sufficient to have a comfortable retirement for the average household.
To test if this is true, we’re going to build an “average retirement plan” with $1,700,000 in financial assets.
Of course, no retirement plan is ever average. Some people have more CPP, some less. Some people have defined benefit pensions, others do not. Some people want to spend more in retirement while others are content with spending less. There is no such thing as an “average retirement plan” but we’re going to make some broad assumptions to test whether or not $1,700,000 is a reasonable goal for retirement assets or if it’s grossly overstated.
RRSP Deadline: Should You Make An RRSP Contribution This Year?
The RRSP deadline is quickly approaching on March 1st, and you should get ready for advertisements selling you all sorts of RRSP products over the next few weeks. But despite what the advertisements suggest, should you actually make an RRSP contribution this year? Maybe, but maybe not.
In this blog post we’re going to highlight 5 reasons why you SHOULD NOT make an RRSP contribution this year.
As we build financial plans with clients, we sometimes come across situations where RRSP contributions were made to the detriment of the client. The client was in one or more of the situations below, but they were still advised to make RRSP contributions, or they were advised to split contributions between RRSP and TFSA, or sometimes they were not given any tax planning or government benefit advice at all.
Depending on the situation, this has cost a number of clients $10,000’s in extra income tax or reduced government benefits.
So, as the RRSP deadline approaches, watch out for these five situations where RRSP contributions may not be the best option, and always seek the advice of an unbiased advice-only financial planner to create a thorough income tax and government benefit strategy before making $1,000’s in RRSP contributions.
Join over 250,000 people reading PlanEasy.ca each year. New blog posts weekly!
Tax planning, benefit optimization, budgeting, family planning, retirement planning and more...
Join over 250,000 people reading PlanEasy.ca each year. New blog posts weekly!
Tax planning, benefit optimization, budgeting, family planning, retirement planning and more...