by Owen | Aug 3, 2020 | Financial Planning, Government Programs, Income, Retirement Planning, Tax Planning
The Guaranteed Income Supplement is a government benefit program focused on low-income retirees. It is based on income and is available to low-income Old Age Security (OAS) recipients. It is a non-taxable benefit meant to protect seniors from low levels of retirement income.
The GIS benefit provides income support to over 2.1 million retirees. It provides support to nearly 1 in 3 seniors in Canada. In a given year the Guaranteed Income Supplement will provide over $13 billion in benefits!
GIS is one of the most generous benefits in Canada and because of this it also comes with some extremely high “clawback” rates. GIS benefits get reduced as household income increases. This reduction is called a “clawback” rate because it “claws back” benefits from higher income households. At a certain income level, depending on the household situation, all benefits will be clawed back.
This “clawback” rate is important because it can reach 50% to 75%. This makes low-income retirement planning an important consideration. Not all income triggers the GIS clawback so it’s important to understand where retirement income is coming from and how GIS will be affected. With the average GIS recipient only receiving 54% of the maximum these clawbacks have a big impact.
In this post we’ll review what the Guaranteed Income Supplement is, how it works, how much you could receive, and how the GIS “clawback” works. We’ll also cover some common types of retirement income and how they can affect GIS benefits.
by Owen | Jul 27, 2020 | Behavioral Finance, Financial Goals, Financial Planning, Investment Planning
A lot of focus gets placed on the BIG personal finance decisions, buying a home, using a TFSA versus an RRSP, which investments to use etc etc. But really, it’s the small decisions, the ones we make daily, weekly, monthly, these are the decisions that have the largest impact on our personal finances.
When we look at someone’s financial journey, it’s typically not made up of leaps and bounds but rather small steps and steady progress. There typically isn’t one defining moment that leads to someone’s wealth. It’s usually a repeated process of saving and investing.
Like a snowball, wealth usually starts small, but it builds quickly. It generates more and more momentum as it gets larger until it becomes something unstoppable.
To build a wealth snowball is simple. It requires commitment in the beginning, with new contributions made on a regular basis. It requires growth, those contributions need to be invested and any investment income needs to be reinvested. And it requires time, time for the wealth snowball to gain momentum.
Given those three factors, at some point in the future, the wealth snowball will be driven not by contributions but by growth. New contributions will be dwarfed by annual investment growth and the snowball will grow faster and faster.
The important thing when building a wealth snowball is to stay on track, ensure spending is less than income, ensure the leftover gets invested regularly, and keep focused on the long-term because it takes a bit of time before growth overtakes contributions.
by Owen | Jul 13, 2020 | Budgeting, Financial Goals, Financial Planning, RESP/Kids Education, Saving Money
Children are expensive. That’s something we can all appreciate. But just how expensive are they? What is the cost of raising a child? What is the cost of raising 2, 3, 4+ children?
For new parents, or soon-to-be parents, the cost of raising a child can be a real guessing game. As parents to two young children, my wife and I felt the same uncertainty when we started our family. We had to guess about how much it would cost and what kind of expenses we needed to anticipate.
We anticipated some costs, especially in the first few years, but we never took the time to look at the total cost of raising a child, we just didn’t know where to begin.
As many parents can attest to, raising a child is expensive. There are many costs when raising a child. From diapers to daycare, food to formula, the total cost of raising a child is shockingly large.
The estimated cost of raising a child in Canada is $203,550! Wow!
Plus, this estimate doesn’t even include educations savings like RESP contributions. Add in enough RESP contributions to max out the $7,200 government grant and you’re at a total cost of $239,550 to raise a child in Canada!!!
With each child costing nearly a quarter million dollars, anticipating these costs becomes a very important part of a financial plan. It’s also important to realize this this quarter million is very front loaded, with a lot of the cost coming in the early years. For new families this is important.
When building a plan, we want to anticipate these costs on a year-by-year basis, we want to understand when these expenses will occur, and we want to plan for possible cash flow issues down the road.
We also want to help new parents understand that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, because for parents with 1, 2, or 3+ young children, the cost of daycare and diapers can feel pretty overwhelming.
Lastly, we also want to anticipate government benefits and tax credits, both can help offset a large percentage of the cost of raising a child. This is an important part of a family plan and can be worth thousands of dollars per year, so we don’t want to ignore them.
by Owen | Jul 6, 2020 | Behavioral Finance, Buying A Home, Down Payment, Financial Planning, Income, Investment Planning, Retirement Planning
Demographic trends can be extremely interesting. Demographic trends can influence a lot of things, they can impact voting and public policy, they can impact consumer trends, they can impact the consumption of goods and services.
The interesting thing about demographic trends is that they’re (somewhat) predictable. The way our population looks today will directly translate to how it looks in the future. Factors like immigration and advances in health care can change these trends slightly, but in general, the way people age is fairly predictable.
What is interesting about demographics is that as people age they do things differently, their behavior changes, their lifestyle changes, they consume different things.
Over the last 60+ years there have been two huge demographic waves, the first was the “baby boomers” and the second was their “echo”. These two groups are very noticeable when looking at population by age group. Demographic charts clearly show two huge population waves with troughs in-between.
Now, I’d like to preface this post with the fact that I hate predictions and forecasts. In my opinion, a good financial plan shouldn’t rely on predictions or forecasts to be successful. A good financial plan will prepare for various future events and still have a high chance of success. It’s important to anticipate possible risks and how they may impact a financial plan.
Typically, when we talk about risk we talk about investment risk and inflation rate risk. A good plan will still be successful even with changing investment returns and changing inflation rates. But what about real estate values? What about housing?
For two groups of people, the variability in real estate values should be a big concern when doing a financial plan. One group is real estate investors, people with rental properties that make up a large % of their assets. The second group is future downsizers, people who have made downsizing to a smaller home a key part of their future financial plan.
For these two groups of people it’s important to understand that real estate growth rates can vary and this creates risk. Simply assuming inflation, or inflation + xx%, is not a great strategy.
In this post we’ll look at how demographics may impact future housing demand and why a good financial plan should be prepared for different rates of real estate appreciation.
by Owen | Jun 15, 2020 | Financial Planning, Government Programs, Investment Planning, Retirement Planning, Tax Planning
What are OAS clawbacks? How can you avoid them? How impactful are OAS clawbacks in retirement?
The typical retiree will receive an OAS benefit of $7,362 per year (in 2020) and over the course of a 30-year retirement would receive payments of $220,860 (in today’s dollars). That is a significant amount of retirement income!
OAS clawbacks can reduce this income all the way to zero. OAS clawbacks are 15% of net income, so they can have a big influence on a retirement plan. Experiencing full OAS clawbacks would mean that a retiree needs to make up this income on their own through extra investment assets. This may require hundreds of thousands in extra investment assets.
Avoiding OAS clawbacks is an important part of retirement planning. We’d like to avoid these clawbacks if possible. Through various strategies we can reduce or eliminate these clawbacks in retirement. This can be very beneficial to a retiree.
There are a few strategies that can help retirees avoid OAS clawbacks. Which strategy makes sense will depend on the retirees sources of income and their financial assets. In this post we’ve got 7 strategies to consider if you want to avoid OAS clawbacks in retirement.
But first, what is an OAS clawback?
by Owen | Jun 1, 2020 | Financial Planning, Government Programs, Income, Retirement Planning, Tax Planning
Planning retirement income is one of the most challenging aspects of a retirement plan. There are often multiple income sources of income to plan for, as many as 5+ for individuals, and as many as 10+ for couples. These income sources also “phase in” at different times throughout retirement.
Here are some of the most common sources of retirement income…
1. Government pensions like…
– CPP (Canada Pension Plan)
– OAS (Old Age Security)
2. Defined benefit pensions
3. Registered accounts like RRSP/RRIF
4. Locked-in registered accounts like LIRA/LIF (and Defined Contribution Pension Plans)
5. Government benefits like GIS
6. TFSA accounts
Understanding how much income to expect from each of these income sources can be a challenge. They may start at different times in retirement, they may also increase with inflation or not.
On top of understanding how much income these different sources may provide it’s also important to understand how they’re taxed. Some of these income sources are taxed differently. Some are also eligible for income splitting at different points in retirement. This income splitting is a distinct tax advantage for couples and shouldn’t be ignored.
In this post we’re going to look at the seven most common sources of retirement income and some of the planning considerations to keep in mind when planning your retirement income.
Warning: Because of the complexity when planning retirement income it’s impossible to fully highlight all the nuances for each of these sources of retirement income in one post. If you feel uncomfortable planning your retirement income then please speak with a professional (ideally an advice-only financial planner) about building a custom retirement plan. Understanding the phasing of retirement income sources, the tax implications, and the possible government clawbacks on benefits like GIS is well worth the money.
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