Author: Larry C.

If you are close to retirement, I recommend you try out this retirement spending calculator created by Morneau Shepell, a large Canadian human resource company.  It’s the most involved and accurate calculator I’ve discovered for Canadians. The man behind the calculator is the recently retired chief actuary at Morneau Shepell, Fred Vettese, (author of The Real Retirement, a fantastic book […]

If you spend any time watching or reading about the stock market, I’m sure you will often hear debate on whether now is a good time to invest.  Some will argue that the market is overvalued and is due for a drop, while equally intelligent sounding people will argue the market is not expensive and now is a good time […]

William Bernstein is a well know personal finance writer who tries his best to convince people to save for retirement using low cost broadly diversified index funds.  He has written a few books on the topic but recently released a short e-book for young people who need help investing.   You could read this book and learn quite a bit on […]

First of all, consider yourself lucky that you are one of the few remaining workers in Canada that can still count on a pension plan at work. The once common defined benefit pension plan that paid out a guaranteed amount to a retiree every year until death is quickly dying out. In its place, most employers will offer to match […]

Investing articles can be long and boring.  How about I read the article and provide you with the important information for DIY investing success. Here it is. If you have the misfortune of retiring when the stock market peaks and you see a big decline in your first few years of retirement, the safest way to ensure your money doesn’t […]

Investing articles can be long and boring.  How about I read the article and provide you with the important information for DIY investing success. Here it is: For the past 20 years many Canadians, especially those who live in Toronto and Vancouver has come to be convinced that you can’t lose money in real estate because houses always go up […]

Warren Buffett is widely regarded as the best stock picker in the world. For over 50 years he has very successfully operated Berkshire Hathaway as a holding company purchasing companies trading primarily on the New York Stock Exchange. When Warren is no longer buying and selling, he will place all his family money into only 2 investments: 90% will go […]

Humans are not robots.  They don’t always make rational decisions.  If you don’t believe this then you probably believe that the federal government’s plan to boost Canada Pension Plan (CPP) contributions and payouts doesn’t make sense.  In a perfectly rational world, Canadians will simply reduce their savings elsewhere to balance out the extra contributions they and their employers will make. […]

I’ve already blogged that the key to a comfortable retirement is more about staying gainfully employed for as long as possible. If you can do this until age 65, at a job you enjoy even if that job isn’t the highest paying job, and save 6% of your income, you will go a long way to achieving a good quality […]

What to do with your retirement savings: Rule #4: Invest your savings in low cost stock and bond index funds: As hard as it is to believe, you can have the same standard of living in retirement with only 50% of your pre retirement income. Your goal now is to save enough money to hit your target retirement balance before […]